Yesterday my 11 yr old 5th grade son was slapped on the shoulder by a teacher. Not a "Hiya" but a "SHUT UP" kind of a slap, out of anger.
It was his female computer teacher.
Beginning of class, class room is very noisy. Teacher calls for students to sit down and be quiet, they don't really respond.
My son has a question (What's a CPU) but decides NOT to shout for the teacher because the boy next to him already has loudly called for her. The teacher answers that boys question and my son says "Mrs. XXX I have a question". She SLAPS him on the shoulder and tells him to go out in the hallway till he's ready to behave.
He doesn't move, she says "Are you ready to behave"? He says yes.
He sits quietly the rest of class... then after class he goes back to his classroom and tells the substitute teaching yesterday what happened and asks if he can go to the office. She agrees.
At the office he tells the story to the substitute Dean of Students. She tells this to the Principal who comes in to hear it directly from my son. The Principal and my son then go to the Computer room to speak with the teacher. She says "I don't recall slapping him" and says "If I did then I'm sorry".
My son calls me after school so I head over to talk with the Principal. His attitude is "oh it's all over now, she apologized", my attitude is "How can you let a teacher strike a student? and if there are allegations of this happening, how can you NOT contact a parent". I can tell I'm getting no where with him.
I pick up my wife from her school and we go back to the school. It's like 4:30 and everyone's gone, BUT the main school is open for a basketball game, so we decide to see if the main Principal for both schools is available.
When we get there we see the Dean of Students and get a private room where we tell her the entire story. She says she'll speak with everyone today and get back with my. I missed her call earlier and am waiting for a call back now.
So... what do we do?
The slap wasn't hard enough to leave any type of mark, but that's not entirely the point. My son is a good student and would never make any of this up.
Now he doesn't want to go to computer class, and the Dean said he wouldn't have to if he was uncomfortable. So far she seems like the only one taking any of this serious. The Principal of the K-5 (the guy I sat down with) is a non-caring *bleep*. As of yesterday, I have 0 respect for him. "Oh well she apologized so it's ok now". And that apology - "IF I did slap him THEN I'm sorry" which is basically saying "your son is a liar and I'm covering my ass".
sux.... waiting for the callback... not even sure what we're going to do or even what we want to accomplish from this....