Posted on 10/23/2004 7:34:49 PM PDT by Husker24
MACON, Georgia - A teacher-parent brawl in front of 19 primary school pupils sent a mother to the emergency room and the teacher to jail.
Teacher Katrina Ann Rucker, 30, is charged with battery and cruelty to children for allegedly beating a parent who tried to retrieve her daughter's book bag, The Macon Telegraph newspaper reported Friday.
According to police interviews, parent Lurella Amica went to Bruce-Weir Elementary School Thursday morning to deliver a note to her 9-year-old daughter.
At the classroom door, the girl told her mother that Rucker had thrown her bag in the trash can, the report stated. Amica entered the classroom and tried to get the book bag, but Rucker grabbed for it and the two struggled, the report said.
After Amica wrestled the bag away, police say Rucker picked up a chair and hit her in the back, knocking Amica to the floor. Rucker then began punching Amica in the face and body.
During the fight, the girl was reportedly crying for her teacher to stop hitting her mother and ran up to them. Rucker then allegedly hit the child, pulled her hair and pushed her out of the way before starting to strike the mother again.
Rucker dragged Amica by the hair outside the classroom, according to the report.
"A school administrator and another teacher had to pull the teacher off the mother," Macon police spokeswoman Melanie Hofmann said.
In Rucker's account of the story, she said Amica hit her hand during the initial struggle, Hofmann said.
"The teacher said she was defending herself because she gets a shot in that hand and it hurt," Hofmann said.
Amica was in stable condition in the emergency room of The Medical Center of Central Georgia late Thursday night.
Rucker was placed on administrative leave.
Sylvia McGee, Bibb County's deputy superintendent, said school staff called the parent or guardian of each child in the class. Social workers counseled students, and only Amica's daughter left school early.
Principal Karen Konke sent letters to parents about the incident.
"Let me assure you the school is safe and that our students have been involved in appropriate instructional activities throughout the day," Konke wrote.
LOL!!!...........how long before we hear from Jessie?
I believe you're right. The bookbag in the trash is most certainly not ALL of the story. The reporter on this one is incompetent for not telling the whole story.
This not only points out the failure of the public school systems to adequately check the character of teachers, but the irresponsibility of the media to set reporting standards for journalists. This also points out the failure of the American people to realize that some things are TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY wrong in this country and need to be corrected ASAP or we're going to degenerate quickly into third-world country. The recent, obviously organized, attacks on Republican headquarters and signage is an evil omen of things to come. If this election is close, a Wall Street Journal editorial just stated, we're going to have horrific problems in this country.
Exactly correct. However, some of us do excercise self-control. Some things need to be changed.
I can see why. You're probably a product of the public school system. I do my job. Do you hat me too? Bring it on, I like hats.
Another sista in jail.
Did you go look at the link? I could not believe it when I saw it.
There's no money to do so because there's too much flotsam in the system.
Sylvia McGee, Bibb County's deputy superintendent
Kathy Tessin, the system's human resources director
Mike Van Wyck, assistant superintendent for student support services
Rebecca Leigh White, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Education
Social workers counseled students
A school administrator...had to pull the teacher off the mother
Classroom teachers should be the highest paid employees in every school district. That would solve a lot of the problems facing our education system.
ROFLMAO
"These are just a few examples that I've seen. My sister, who lives in Virginia, has called me more than once with eye popping people-out-of-control stories. There's something very wrong going on across this country. Almost like there is something we've all been exposed to and the effects are now being manifested.
I know...I know...tin foil hats and all that."
No, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY correct in your observation. I say it started around 1987. I kept telling my friends and family and they thought or looked at me like I was the one who was nuts. Now it's all around us. I say it's a combination of our diet(sugar biggest culprit), frenzied work environments, lack of spiritual faith, more focus on materialism not that it's bad or wrong to want nice things but when people put it as #1 priority before Faith, Family and community it's trouble. Everybody's talking but nobody is LISTENING.
As for this whole business about the pay... you know... there are days when I'm cooped up with 30 feral pre-teens who act like chimpanzees, and I have no authority to even grab them by the arm and say "Knock it off!" And I think even earning $200,000 a year wouldn't be enough to make this kind of stress worthwhile for long.
I think it started way before 1987. I think it started in the Let It All Hang Out 1960s, when self-control started being recast as "repression" and authority was automatically "bad."
I was wondering the same thing. Even a later update didn't answer this question. Very odd.
I can't believe this story ran w this pic!
Has anybody been fired yet?
Why isn't WCBS's portrayal being covered in the news shows?
This is confusing! She gets a shot in that hand? Frequently? How often does she get a shot in that hand? Does she have arthritis or something? If she gets shots in that hand, shouldn't it say that?
"The teacher said she was defending herself because she gets shots in that hand and it hurt." Or "The teacher said she was defending herself because she had recently received a shot in that hand and it hurt."
I see many berating the teacher, but you just wonder what went on. My bet is these two have known each other a while--perhaps old high school/neighborhood rivalries and they got into it in that classroom. You just don't get a reaction like that without some kind of history/ongoing tension between the two women, probably seperate from any school incident.
Bingo...should have read further along. I suspect this is an ongoing bitter relationship for both women as well--something that reaches outside of the classroom--just happened to be where it escalated.
I resemble that remark. Something has to be done. We MUST return to a system of personal responsibility for one's actions. The teacher is obviously emotionally/mentally disturbed. The parent is more than likely an equal case. BOTH should be severely punished. In my new society, both would be caned. Any repeat offender would be executed. Problem solved.
Thanks for pinging me. I just read this story on another message board. This story is appalling.
"I think it started way before 1987. I think it started in the Let It All Hang Out 1960s, when self-control started being recast as "repression" and authority was automatically "bad."
You're right but I was being specific about the current onslaught of IN YOUR FACE occurrences we witness of middle class white collarish people who don't fit the free lovin, anti-work/establishment, doper hippie/grunge/punk/hip hop stereo type. This is what is shocking to so many. It's out of the norm.
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