Questions raised over clash between student, substitute teacher at Westside

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - We are asking questions about a video showing a substitute teacher and student at Westside High School arguing with one another. The substitute teacher in the video is 22 years old, and now a mom is speaking out after she says her son was threatened by him.

All this starts with a young substitute teacher who showed up wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt and a student who greeted him that morning, asking, “What’s up, little man?”

We sat down with that student’s mother, who wanted to stay anonymous to get her reaction to it all.

The substitute teacher you hear in the video is screaming at a student. It’s about 8 a.m. when this all took place.

“He picked up my son’s stuff, moved my son’s stuff outside and told him to bring his (expletive) outside. ... That’s what he told my child,” said the mother. “As a teacher, we are not going to do that, we are not going to do that.”

And still, the mother doesn’t fully know what happened.

“Why has Mr. Smith not ed me? Why has the superintendent not ed me? Like this is — I won’t say more because it’s a whole lot of curse words. But it’s ridiculous. It’s sad with this school system. It’s really sad,” she said.

She says she waited two hours for an to tell her the sub was escorted off the premises and he’s facing charges with a court date for Nov. 4.

“I don’t even know what charges he has,” she said.

She says the only apology she’s gotten came from the assistant principals. And it happened the same day there was a fight involving two students where one of them pulled a knife.

“So what’s going on with the safety at Westside? How did a child get a knife in the school at Westside, the same day that a teacher tried to fight my child?” she said.

And her biggest question, “Why didn’t this man go to jail in handcuffs? Y’all took the kids to jail in handcuffs for fighting. He’s an adult. He should have been escorted off the premises in handcuffs also,” she said.

Her biggest concern – “I’m worried about not just my kids all kids at Westside all kids at all Richmond County schools because if y’all are just hiring anybody, anything can happen.”

It does raise questions about where they find their substitutes. And we looked into that. The Richmond County School System works with third-party company Kelly Education Services. The company supplies substitute teachers and trains them. The minimum requirement to apply for a K-12 substitute teacher job is a high school diploma or GED, and applicants also have to a background check.

And the school system released a statement saying it’s investigating the incident involving the substitute teacher.

In a statement, the district said:

“The Richmond County School System contracts with Kelly Educational Services to provide employees to fill substitute teacher assignments. The School System conducts an extensive background check and requires Kelly Education Services to provide training for their employees who accept assignments with the Richmond County School System. The School System is investigating an incident that occurred at Westside High School yesterday that was reported to involve a substitute teacher. Following the investigation, the School System will work with Kelly Educational Services to address any employment concerns.”

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