2:30
- ABC News
- January 11, 2018
Teacher handcuffed at board meeting speaks out
Middle school teacher Deyshia Hargrave was handcuffed by a deputy marshal.
But the school board president, Anthony Fontana, defended the actions of the officer in a Tuesday interview with KATC, comparing the action taken to a student’s being punished for unruliness.
\"If a teacher has the authority to send a student, who is acting up and she can't control, out of the classroom to the principal's office, under our policy we have the same rules,\" Fontana said. \"We have certain rules: Three-minute speech, it has to be civilized, it can't get off target, it has to be related to the issue before the board. That's not what was happening last night.
\"The marshal did his job,\" Fontana added. \"He was taking her out. He wasn't arresting her. He was escorting her out, telling her, 'Don't come back tonight.' It escalated out in the hall and she ended up getting arrested.”
Fontana said he believes the incident was a \"set up,\" KATC also reported.
The other board members \"have been committed to getting rid of the superintendent,\" he said.
He added: \"The whole issue, from day one, was that they were not going to give him a contract.\"
Even Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards weighed in on the controversy on his radio show Wednesday. He also tweeted about the incident and shared a link to video from the show.
It was terribly unfortunate what happened to Deyshia Hargrave in Vermilion Parish. We need to do a better job of promoting our teachers in our communities and encouraging them in their walk as educators. #lagov https://t.co/YBhbvHgtCO
— Gov John Bel Edwards (@LouisianaGov) January 11, 2018
\"I know there's going to be an investigation, but that was terribly unfortunate and should not have happened, and it casts a negative light on our state,\" Edwards said.
\"Teachers do an amazing job in the classroom every day, and we really need to do a better job of promoting them in our communities and lifting them up and encouraging them in their work as educators,\" Edwards' wife Donna, who used to be a public school music teacher, said in joining her husband on his monthly talk show.
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