SMH: Video Shows Teacher Dragging Kindergartner Down The Hallway
Teaching was never an easy job, especially when you work will children. However, those children are also just trying to figure out how to deal with intense emotions and more than likely don’t know how to express them. Well, one teacher’s reaction to a student’s tantrum led her to handcuffs.
A Texas mother is finally speaking out about the former special education teacher who pleaded guilty to dragging her 5-year-old son child by his ankle down a hallway.
The incident happened back in 2022. The student was enrolled in the Early Childhood Special Education program at Tipps Elementary School when he threw a tantrum during gym class after he decided he didn’t want to a game other students were playing, according to court documents.
In the hallway, the boy laid on the floor, kicking and screaming (as children who have tantrums do). Then, surveillance camera footage shows Amber Hall, the teacher, grab him by his ankles and pull him down the hallway as his back slid across tile and carpet floors.
Charging documents claim he was dragged 143 feet before Hall reached another classroom where another teacher met her and picked up the boy.
The boy suffered abrasions and carpet-burn like injuries to his shoulders and back that were sensitive to the touch, according to a KPRC 2 NOW report. As for Hall, she was slammed with criminal charges.
Read more from Click2Houston:
On Sept. 13, Hall met with investigators at the Cy-Fair Police Department. She reportedly told them that she was not CPI (Crisis Prevention Institute) trained on how to appropriately address situations that call for physical contact with a student and was looking for someone CPI trained to assist her, and that is why she was dragging the child down the hallways.
On Aug. 2, Hall pled guilty to injury to a child, a 3rd-degree felony, and waived the right of trial by jury. The prosecutor will recommend her punishment.
Nicole Graves, the boy’s mother, told KPRC she didn’t know what happened to her son until he got home and told her his teacher “broke his back.” This was only one of many incidents Graves said her son was involved in. She told reporters her son was restrained 40 times over, the last being in 2023 when the principal blocked her from trying to help her son who was being restrained by a school employee.
She allegedly threatened the principal to gain access to her son, however she denies the allegations. Now, her and her children are not allowed at Tipps Elementary.
