Florida Teacher Fired After Student Gets Hit by Scissors

Florida Teacher Fired After Student Gets Hit by Scissors
(OSORIOartist/iStock)
Bowen Xiao
10/25/2017
Updated:
10/28/2017

A school teacher from Orange County, Florida, was fired from his job after a student said he threw a pair of scissors in class—hitting her in the face.

The teacher, whose name has not been revealed yet due to the ongoing investigation, was an eighth-grade science teacher at Orange County’s Westridge Middle School on Oak Ridge Road, NBC affiliate WESH2 reported.
“The teacher was cursing. He kept saying a couple words. He was angry. I guess the (other) kid kept doing the same thing and wouldn’t listen, so he took the scissors away from the kid and tossed them and they hit her,” the girl’s mother, Jayme Olivera told KPRC-TV. “We teach (children not to) run with scissors. Why are you throwing scissors in class?”

The girl said she had reported the incident to a counselor the day it happened, but her mother said she learned about the incident from her daughter’s Snapchat messages, not the school, KPRC-TV reported.

The location of the Orange County school. (Screenshot Via Google Maps)
The location of the Orange County school. (Screenshot Via Google Maps)

The unnamed teacher sent a photo to WESH2 of what he claimed to be a similar pair of scissors, they had blunt ends. He said he threw the scissors in frustration over another student’s misbehavior.

But that excuse does not sit will with Olivera.

“If you’re angry, if you feel like that, take the kid aside. You know, we should be able to deal with these things as adults. You know, we teach our kids not to run with scissors and that’s a deadly weapon you just threw across the room because you got angry?” Olivera told WESH2. “That’s my kid. What if it was her eyeball? It wasn’t, but what if?”

The teacher did admit to throwing the scissors, but he denied they ever hit the student’s face and said he didn’t know how she received the cuts.

“I don’t think I am in trouble. I threw the scissors in frustration, but not near any student and she was not hurt. I saw her face in class and saw the gash and I have no idea where that came from. That could not have happened from the scissors,” the teacher told WESH2.

But the girl gave a conflicting report of what happened. She said when her teacher threw the scissors across the room, it ricocheted off a whiteboard and hit her in the face, leaving her with scratches, KPRC-TV reported.

As of writing on Wednesday, Oct. 25, the teacher has not been charged with any crime.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office is conducting an open investigation into the incident.

From NTD.tv
Bowen Xiao was a New York-based reporter at The Epoch Times. He covers national security, human trafficking and U.S. politics.
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