A Chino Hills elementary school teacher was placed on administrative leave after it was reported she had shoved one of her students.
Monica Alexander believes a teacher at Butterfield Ranch Elementary School pushed her 6-year-old son Chance on Thursday during class. He now has a bruise on his forehead, which he said was left after he struck a table as he fell.
"She slammed me like a door," Chance Alexander said. "She grabbed my shirt and throwed me."
"It’s scary, because how many times has it happened before?" Monica Alexander said.
A special education teacher who was also in the classroom reported the incident to the principal, according to Monica Alexander. The Chino Valley Unified School said in a statement that it was cooperating with the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and had also launched its own investigation. The teacher accused of shoving Alexander was placed on administrative leave.
"Chino Valley Unified School District is taking this matter very seriously," the district said in the statement. "Providing a safe and secure learning environment for our students has been and will always be our first priority as a school district."
Alexander said her son has ADHD and other behavioral issues they have been working to improve, and that he has been the topic of complaints at school board meetings. But nothing, she said, justifies a teacher assaulting a child.
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"I’m upset, I’m hurt," she said. “Because the same behavior I’m telling him to stop doing – when you get upset, you don’t hit – she got upset and she hit my son."
Parents at Butterfield Ranch recently voiced frustrations with what they say is a lack of administrative support for its teachers. At a recorded school board meeting on Jan. 16, several parents said school officials have failed to respond to reports of students threatening or attacking each other and teachers. Some reported 23 of 27 teachers had requested to be transferred from the school by the time of the meeting.
Alexander said she wants the teacher who she says shoved her son held accountable but is focusing on supporting him.
She also worries that, because she is a single mother, she will have to take off work to bring him to therapy.
"I feel very violated because I sent my son there thinking he was safe and this happens," Alexander said.
