The Birmingham News has an update on yesterday’s story about a substitute teacher who taped up some students.

The parent of a Pleasant Grove Elementary School student on Wednesday came to a substitute teacher’s defense, saying an incident in which she taped fourth-graders to their seats happened in jest.

The substitute, whom school officials declined to identify, was banned Tuesday from teaching in Jefferson County schools. That action stands, Nez Calhoun, a spokeswoman for the county school district, said Wednesday.

Calhoun on Tuesday characterized the taping as an inappropriate attempt at discipline. School officials said four students were taped to their desks using Scotch tape and another’s mouth was taped shut.

That description doesn’t tell the whole story, Kelley White said. After watching a news broadcast Tuesday evening about the incident, White said her 10-year-old son became upset and said the report was inaccurate.

“My little boy said they were laughing and cutting up,” she said.

A few children in the class kept getting out of their seats, and the substitute told them if they continued, she would tape them, White said. The boy whose mouth was taped, White said, stood up in a chair, asked for tape and shut his mouth himself. Other students asked the substitute teacher to tape them to their chairs, and students who were taped were “breaking free,” White said her son told her.

Hmmm…  Looks like we have a bit of parental overreaction from the parent who made a big deal of this situation.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Alabama, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.