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Parents of a Glendale student are outraged after a teacher allegedly assaulted their son during class.
The assault reportedly happened on April 10 at Woodrow Wilson Middle School, according to Edit Novshadyan, the student’s mother. She claimed school officials tried to cover up the incident following their complaint.
“How could this happen in this day and age?” Novshadyan said in disbelief.
She said their son was assaulted by his 7th-grade math teacher in an unprovoked attack.
“I get a text message from him saying, ‘Mom, my teacher hit me,’ and I wrote to him, ‘What? Are you kidding me? Are you serious? Are you messing with me?’ And he’s like, ‘No, Mom. My teacher hit me.’”
Novshadyan said her son’s teacher initially asked him to stop eating in class. When he turned around to speak with another classmate about a math problem, that’s when the teacher allegedly came up from behind him and suddenly slapped him.
“She was shaming him very badly,” said Roland Bagdasaryan, the boy’s father. “Yelling at him, ‘How dare you! You’re bad, you’re not a good kid. You’re making stuff up.’”
In addition to the bruises the boy endured, he was also verbally belittled by the teacher for his alleged “bad behavior.”
A cellphone video captured by a student during the altercation’s aftermath showed the teacher allegedly defending her actions.
“I’m not afraid of you or your parent or your lawyer, whatsoever!” the teacher is heard yelling at the student.
The boy replies, “You can’t hit me,” and the teacher counters with, “Yes, I can!”
According to the family’s attorney, the student who captured that exchange was told to email the recording to the vice principal and then erase it from his phone.
“We need the truth,” said Armen Akaragian, the attorney representing the student and his family. “Especially when we drop off our kids at schools, where we as parents drop them off in a place where they think they’re safe. Unless school districts come down on their teachers and tell them there are going to be major consequences for this conduct, it’s just going to continue.”
Upon hearing the news, some concerned parents are hoping the district will enact changes to school policies to prevent something like this from happening in the future.
“Why was she allowed to continue to teach after an assault?” Novshadyan asked. “She assaulted a child. She should have been escorted off campus pending an investigation. There are rules that she has to follow and rules that [the student] has to follow. She can’t hit a kid.”
A Glendale Unified School District spokesperson responded to KTLA’s request for comment, saying:
“We are aware of the allegation and are thoroughly investigating. In order to maintain student and employee confidentiality, I cannot comment further.”
So far, school officials have not announced whether any disciplinary action will be taken against the teacher.
Novshadyan said her son is still traumatized by the incident and has not returned to campus since. They said the school’s vice principal had called them to say their son’s class schedule was changed and that the teacher involved would not be on campus in the coming week.
However, the boy’s family said these actions aren’t enough and that the teacher involved, who has not been identified, should either resign or be fired for how she handled the situation.
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