Teacher sacked after she 'encouraged' her pupils to fight each other
A substitute teacher in Texas has been sacked after she allegedly “encouraged” her students to fight in classroom bouts.
Natally Garcia, who had been employed since early March in a substitute role, was dismissed from Kimbrough Middle School in Mesquite on Thursday, after a school parent shared classroom footage filmed by her daughter of the teacher presiding over the violence between 12 and 13-year-old pupils.
The local independent school district has described the teacher’s actions as “appalling" and "intolerable”, following an investigation into the incident.
Video footage, seemingly filmed in secret under a desk, showed students fighting one-on-one in the middle of the classroom as the substitute teacher looked on. Other students can be heard laughing as they watch the bouts, which took place in the centre of the room with desks which appear to have been pushed to the side.
“Ten seconds, go”, the young female teacher says, as two students stand facing each other in the middle of the room. In the clip, the pair career into desks as they repeatedly hit each other and are hurled across the room during the altercation.
At one stage, Ms Garcia asks a member of the class to “stand by the door and hold it in case somebody comes in”. She also appears to order students not to have their phones out. “I mean it, if I see your phone up I will put it to the office (sic),” she said.
Mesquite Independent School District said in a statement: "Our investigation revealed that this substitute teacher encouraged students to fight each other during class, outlined rules for the students to follow and even instructed a student to monitor the classroom door while the fights took place.”
Evidence presented by mother Beatriz Martinez indicated that the fighting was sufficiently violent as to leave some students bleeding, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. "I couldn’t watch the full video," Ms Martinez told the station. "I had to stop it multiple times because I didn’t think it was real."
Ms Martinez said that her daughter, who has remained anonymous out of fear of retaliation, has been threatened by other students after she recorded the incident.
