A video that appears to capture a special education teacher in New Jersey cursing and yelling at a student has gone viral, prompting outrage among parents and former students. Checkey Beckford reports.
A special education teacher in New Jersey has been suspended after a video appears to have captured him cursing and yelling at a student.
The video appears to show the teacher at Fair Lawn High School yelling at a male student: "You're my g------ student, you get that? I'm your teacher, don't ever tell me what to do. You get it now? Now sit down."
The video was apparently recorded on a student's cell phone and was passed around the school, winding up in the hands of a parent. That mother, whose own son was once in the teacher's special education class, said she was so outraged she posted the video on YouTube.
"The child is non-responsive, non-combative," said the mother, who wanted to remain anonymous. "There's absolutely no reason for him to have berated him in that manner. Zero."
The teacher said in his tirade: "I am the teacher, you know that? A friend of mine's sister passed away, she died. OK? Shut your mouth. Don't you ever for one second in your life think that you're going to tell me anything. You understand that? Do you understand that? You don't?"
"Go cry to your counselor," he said to the boy, who silently retreats back to his seat.
It's unclear what happened before the video began recording. But one man who recently graduated from the school said he's seen the teacher lose his cool several times.
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"He's never cursed, but he's gotten pretty close," said the former student.
The teacher was placed on leave and the school district said in a statement: "The Board of Ed and administration were very disillusioned by the video. The behavior in the video is clearly unacceptable and something clearly we do not condone, now or ever."
The teacher and his union did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
