It seems as if the principal and whoever he reported it to @ the central office have some explaining to do.
A 13-year-old student's attack on a pregnant Collins Elementary School teacher earlier this year caused the teacher to lose her baby, according to documents filed Thursday in Richmond County Juvenile Court.
The Jan. 20 incident initially wasn't reported to law enforcement. The Richmond County School Safety Department stepped in to investigate only after Lt. Richard Roundtree got a call from a Chronicle reporter.
School officials have thus far refused to comment on the baby's condition, saying only that the teacher was examined by a school nurse, instructed to see her physician and on leave for three school days after the incident.
The teen, a special needs student, is charged with aggravated battery in the attack, during which a teacher -- trying to break up a fight -- was struck repeatedly on her body and "intentionally" in the stomach, according to a complaint Roundtree submitted to juvenile authorities.
A petition filed Thursday by the state Department of Juvenile Justice says the boy committed aggravated battery against the teacher by "rendering a member of her body, to wit: an unborn fetus, useless by punching said victim in the abdomen." Roundtree's report says she was approximately 10 weeks pregnant at the time.
Reports obtained from the school system by The Chronicle say the attack happened as the 13-year-old brought his 12-year-old brother, also a special needs student, to the teacher's class to confront another student who "had been bothering him."
According to one report, the 13-year-old left his class to get his brother, and when they entered the pregnant teacher's room she asked them to leave, "but they refused."
As the two brothers approached the student, the teacher stepped between them "and immediately began being struck in the stomach and arms by (the 13-year-old) offender."
A tribunal report says the older brother "hit a teacher in the eye, knocked over a podium onto a student, causing injury to the student, and hit a pregnant teacher on her arm and in her stomach."
The teacher finally pushed the brothers out of the class and they were taken to the school office.
Initially, the school system's safety office wasn't notified by the school's principal, Thomas Norris, who said he reported the case to the school system's central office.
After learning about the incident five days later, Roundtree initiated an investigation to determine whether criminal charges were warranted.
He said at the time that his office prefers to be called in immediately anytime a teacher or student is injured.
Neither Norris nor Roundtree returned calls Thursday. Superintendent Dana Bedden was in Texas, where he is a candidate to head the Irving Independent School District.
After a Feb. 2 tribunal, the 13-year-old was assigned to Tubman Education Center Alternative Program for two years, but the panel agreed to revise that decision should the student become eligible for the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support program.
His younger brother, who officials said did not strike the teacher, was suspended for five days.
After the teen was charged criminally on Feb. 5, he went to juvenile court for a detention hearing. Judge Ben Allen said he appeared heavily medicated, so he ordered him to be sent to Serenity Behavioral Health to have his medications adjusted.
The judge also ordered that he wear a tracking ankle bracelet and undergo a psychological competency evaluation.
"We need to know something about him, mentally," Judge Allen said.
An arraignment date hasn't been set.
Staff Writer Preston Sparks contributed to this article.
Comments
It seems as if the principal and whoever he reported it to @ the central office have some explaining to do.
Does anyone know why this "boy" and his brother are "special needs"? In our politically correct education system (read social engineering) nothing really seems to have a set meaning. By using words with shifting and multiple meaning to set the foundation for an article, we find the meaning of the article can be changed almost at will.
I believe that his "special needs" can be adequately met by confining him to an 6 x 8 foot room for the next 5 or 6 decades.
As for the Judges comment that "We need to know something about him, mentally," No we don't. He is an animal and animals belong in cages when they exhibit violent tendencies...
Special Needs Children means "more federal dollars for the school system". Special Need Children means "more federal dollars" for "the single mom or grandma" who babysits same. The more "special needs people" the more SSI, WIC and welfare. Buy them votes!!!! Absenteeism means "less federal dollars for the school system". If they show up for "breakfast at school" they have given 150%. They are counted present for 180 days. Augusta-RC is a "Special Needs Child".
This student sounds to me like what they classify as an emotional behavioral disorder which has nothing to do with whether he can learn or not.. what he lacks is home training and discipline from the parents.. the parents are to blame for this and the loss of this human life that didn't even have a chance..
Read the first graph, then the third graph and tell me if they make sense...it's early and maybe the coffee hasn't kicked in. I thought "losing a baby" meant a miscarriage.
special need alright, animals need to be caged!!!
Deekster,
You hit the nail on the head. Special needs used to mean learning disabilities. Now, they lump together all the kids called "bad" ones in our school days. Money has to be the only motive for labeling these kids as such. Granted, some kids have emotional problems (which should be addressed by the parents/doctors/counselors) who are placed in these classes, but the majority simply need discipline.
Grouse, your comment is a good one. The third paragraph above is poorly written. School officials cannot possibly have any meaningful comment on the “baby's condition.” Hopefully Johnny Edwards will re-write that paragraph.
Back in my school days we had hall monitors...don't they have this now? Why were kids allowed to roam the halls during class w/o escort? Parenting is the problem, adding fuel to the fire is the meds this kid was probably on...and as said above...too much emphasis on funding for these programs allows an excuse for behavior problem children...make these kids go to a school where cops are stationed outside each classroom and where parents must sign a waiver for strict discipline for these unruly children...once these kids get the message the have no power to misbehave w/o threat of jail or physical restraint, they will behave...don't let these kids play video games or watch tv or listen to gangsta rap...all these media forms encourage the bad behavior on those who are mentally imbalanced very strict routines and controlled environments are the best way to keep the behavior in check...I hope they do lock him up for life...he deserves no less than that for taking another life.
I guess law enforcement felt they had no choice but to charge the kid with aggravated battery, but I predict that nothing will come of these charges. The school system has all but given this kid a free pass in the juvenile court system by labeling him “special needs.” A good lawyer and a paid psychiatrist will have the court declaring the kid is incompetent to stand trial. He will be back in the mainstream by August. He'll probably have to repeat the grade, and he'll be 14 by then. How crazy is that?
When Preston Sparks first wrote about this incident in February, I asked the question on this forum:
What grade is this 13-year old in?
The Chronicle still has not seen fit to tell us readers.
The majority of Special Education (new name: Special Needs) students have been placed in the general education setting (inclusion). During the past few years, Inclusion has been the big push. Self-contained classes are a thing of the past, really. There aren't many Self-Contained Emotional Behavior Classes anymore (if any). These students really need help and they do well in Self-Contained Classes. To dump these students out into the general population with all other students is such a tragedy for everyone concerned.
I don't see where the teacher has blamed anybody for anything. She was trying to keep the boys from beating up an innocent child. I can't believe any sane person would blame the teacher, put the blame where it belongs...I would be willing to bet these kids will be in and out of jail/prison for the rest of their lives. Either way, in or out of jail we will be paying for them for the rest of their lives.....
Read this again bree026. She didn't step between them when they were fighting. It was prior to any fighting. The school system hasn't commented thus far...that doesn't mean now that means since the beginning. The school system felt it did not have the right to put out private information. That is against the law. It was up to the teacher to do that. When I was growing up there were special ed classes now the govenment wants to streamline these kids...that is just wrong, wrong, wrong.
When is this madness gonna stop. In the Pine Hills school on March 10th a student was attacked and stabbed in the eye while a teacher watched. The teacher claims she was afraid of the middle schoolkids. As a result, a student is permanently blinded. But the school has decided to hush this up, because of bad publicity. Home schooling may be the only answer. The schoools can't protect our children. They don't care. And the gov't only wants to keep taking money from the teachers. Who even cares it our children are properly taught.
It is amazing what the school system hushes up. Then the Chronicle gets the information. Teachers' hands are tied behind their backs.
Special needs is a broad catch all term. This person has learned he can do what he pleases and "special needs" will cover his back. When others actions impact our lives negatively those actions need to be controlled either by separation or elimination. It seems the victim's rights are being protected less and the perputator's rights are all important. This needs to change.
We probably have a hundred schools in the CSRA. There are probably at least a half-dozen fights out of those hundred schools each day. The Chronicle would choke on information overload if the schools systems phoned in all the fights and demanded that the newspaper print the fight stories.
I don't think the school systems are “hushing up” the fight stories. I think they are not all newsworthy.
Your right about the amount of fights in our schools, but how many have permanent damage being done. I know from people in Pine Hills, they were told to talk to nobody.
Wow Veryworriedparent! I didn't know about that incident at Pine Hills Middle school. Apparently it was covered up and hush-hushed. As for this story, I am sorry that the teacher, who was concerned for the well-fared of her student, lost her unborn baby. And as for the student who was responsible, I wonder if he feels any remorse, and if he does, is it because he's truly remorseful of ending the life of potential productive citizen or remorseful that he's in trouble.
While I always appreciate writing advice from an avatar, Little Lamb, what I'm saying in the third paragraph is that we've repeatedly asked school officials to tell us what happened to the baby - including, by the way, Principal Norris - and they've refused. We now know, on the record, that the baby's condition is dead. Do you follow?
And it's not that we've just not seen fit to tell our readers what grade he's in, as if we get some kind of pleasure out of it, it's that we don't know, at least not on the record. Because school officials aren't exactly answering all our questions here, and because Preston Sparks had no luck interviewing the teacher and her family, it took a lot of work for me to get the fact that the baby died from a source I could quote. When we get his grade, we'll print that, too.
Thank you, Johnny, for the clarification. I can appreciate that it would be frustrating for you to have to wrangle information from a government agency that does not want to release the information. It would be frustrating and angering for me, too.
I'm sure you can see my angle about the boy's grade. The name of the school is Collins Elementary School. Normally, such a school would be K through 5th grade. But because of re-structuring at Tubman, some middle-school students have been shuffled around the system. If Collins is now housing (some might say warehousing) middle school students mixed in with the K-5 population, they may be fostering an undesirable condition.
It might help us understand “something about him, mentally” (to use juvenile court judge Ben Allen’s phrase) to know what grade he is in. If he's a 13-year-old fifth grader versus being a 13-year-old eighth grader, it could make a judge rule differently vis a vis his capacity to be competent to stand trial.
Ever since I was a graduate student learning about "maknstreaming" special ed (now sepcial needs) students into the regular classroom, I have iopposed it. These children do have special "needs" and that is a class room enviroment of strict discipline which can not be given in a regular classroom. These kids cheat the other students out of a good education because too much of the teacher's time is spent trying to control the uncontrollable. Putting them in public, regular classes is nothing more than making the school system a day care facility for their parents. The older one in this case should get time in YDC, but I doubt it with the bleeding heart judges we have.
In other words, the judge is going to make an excuse for this juvenile, give him a slap on the wrist, and send him on his way. Another crime committed by a juvenile and no doubt he will do it again. There can't be hundreds of teens with mental problems here in Augusta. The problem here is grown folks trying to remain 'politically correct', who are condoning youth ignorance and violent behavior. The juvenile system will dip and dodge to the point of being outright dishonest in order to keep these juveniles on the streets doing what they do. And when these kids realize that there really is no consequence for their actions, they repeat the behavior until some innocent person suffers a loss. Lock them up first, figure it out later. Quit with the blame game and the excuses. That is why the crime rate is what it is here in Augusta. And it's going to get worse.
Watching the television news last night, it reported the 'youth' received five days suspension and was placed on some sort of 'watch list.' In shorter words: Walked scott-free.
A student "intentionally" beats a teacher in the stomach to kill her baby,a boy shoots & kills a pregnant teenage girl and her baby,a gang
of boys beat an innocent boy nearly to death and gloat about it; has the world gone mad ? What will these kids be like in a few years?They will have no compunction about killing anyone for any trivial reason.The destruction of the family has caused the majority of all this.No social worker no matter how hard they try can take the place of a loving mother AND father.I know this isn't politically correct & will cause a firestorm, but no spiritual guidance in the home has contributed greatly to what is happening with these young people.I firmly believe in the following: " No God..No Peace. Know God..Know Peace."
At 10 weeks the fetus is the size of a small strawberry. As upsetting as it might be, a lawyer will get the retard acquitted because there are many spontaneous abortions in the early stages of pregnancies. Only in the unlikely event there was an autopsy showing physical damages, the 'tard might get sentenced.
And by the way, a tracking bracelet is a waste of funding. The agencies that DJJ employs to 'track' these youth don't report anything. These kids are still out at all times of night WITH the bracelet on. It is a waste of time and money. Money paid to these tracking agencies could be used somewhere else. Like in the SCHOOL system, or to build a bigger YDC jail.
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