Mother: First-grader hospitalized after bullying at school because teacher was on cell phone

A Dallas-area mother says her first-grade child has been hospitalized after a fight with a bully at school, and she claims that the child’s teacher was too busy with her cell phone to step in and stop the fight. The fight occurred at Sherrod Elementary School in Arlington, Texas.

What’s the story?

According to KTVT-TV, the mother, Raven West, provided the station with a picture showing a gruesome gash in her child’s forehead that was so graphic they had to show it in black and white on television to avoid upsetting viewers.

West said that her son told her that the fight began when another student in her son’s class demanded that he hand over a Pop Tart. She claims that her six-year-old son repeatedly went to his teacher to ask for help, but that the teacher ignored him because she was on her cell phone, and dismissively told him to go back to his seat.

The school board, however, has a different version of events. According to a statement provided to KTVT, after the two children started pushing and shoving in class, the teacher stepped in and stopped the fight, and removed the two children to the hallway. Then, in spite of the fact that a teacher’s aide was in the hallway, West’s son ended up being shoved into a door, which is what led to the injury.

What else?

West and several other parents attended a school board meeting Thursday night to protest the incident and demand that the teacher be held accountable.

However, the school board is standing behind the teacher, and says she did nothing wrong. According to KTVT, school board president Dr. Aaron Reich said at the meeting that “Safety is the number one concern of our children,” and that, “Throughout the situation, all of our campus and district protocols and procedures were followed.”

The school board also stated that the mother would be allowed to watch security camera footage of the incident in the hallway; however, the video would seem unlikely to mollify Ms. West since it does not show what happened in the classroom before the altercation spilled out into the hallway.