A teacher at a Catholic school for the deaf in Ohio has been placed on leave after being accused of throwing a 9-year-old student.
The Dec. 6 incident at St. Rita School for the Deaf in Evendale, Ohio, about 20 miles north of Cincinnati, was captured on surveillance video shared on social media by the mother of the student involved, local WCPO reports.
The low quality images The video shows an unidentified teacher picking up a young girl in a hallway before the video malfunctions and continues when the child is on the ground.
In another scene, a teacher can be seen carrying the girl down the hall, but details of what happened next remain unclear.
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St. Rita School for the Deaf as seen from I-75 in Evendale, Ohio.
(Google Maps)
“No matter which way you look at it, it’s clear that this was a malicious act. It was not random,” Alexis Wells told WCPO. “When I first saw the video, I was so angry that I had to take a minute. I was completely speechless, unable to concentrate on what I wanted to say.
“She was completely non-verbal, so the first thing she did was act out what happened to her teacher,” Wells said of her daughter, who used sign language to describe what happened to her mother. “He kept saying, ‘My teacher abandoned me, my teacher abandoned me, my teacher abandoned me.’ He got angry, he dumped me.’
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The Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains serves as the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
(Google Maps)
Wells challenged the school, saying the school “didn’t say exactly what happened or what caused it, it didn’t say anything.”
“The school didn’t really tell me. [The school president] he said he had problems with the transition. Because of his brain damage, he has trouble staying focused on a topic or task,” Wells explained.
Wells said St. Rita’s School described what happened the next day as a “minor incident.”
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Evendale, Ohio is located 20 miles northeast of Cincinnati.
(Eric Lykins via Getty Images)
St. Rita’s School is maintained by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which confirmed that the Dec. 6 “incident involving a teacher” is continuing its investigation and that the teacher has been placed on administrative leave.
“Any behavior by an employee of St. Rita’s that does not show the respect and dignity of the children entrusted to us will be dealt with immediately,” the spokesperson continued. “The safety of students and staff is paramount at St. Rita’s.
“For the privacy of the child and as this is personnel related, no further information is available at this time.”