"Teach grabbed the phone..." If that is the case, the teacher had to have assaulted the student... there was apparently a struggle for the phone during which the phone was disconnected. If so, the teacher had to have touched the student forcefully... that is assault... and if contact was made, battery.
...for the kid to use this as an excuse to allow his grades to go down is just as dumb.
It may not be "an excuse" it may be a fact. I know of school districts where a 10 day suspension requires a one level grade reduction in all classes he is taking.
he said that this was making his grades fall. there is another article about this floating around here somewhere...
This may be the legal description of the incident, in which case the teacher is a criminal, and should be prosecuted and sued along with the school district. I wonder if the brave ACLU would like to tackle this one. This kid has no one to speak for him here.
Ideally he would not have been disrespectful, however, he is not of age, mature, or experienced, and the teacher IS, who is the more irresponsible in the creating of this incident?
IIRC "in loco parentis" is still fully in force. That would make the so-called "assault" on the same level if a prent had yanked a cell phone out of his/her kid's hand.