In Houston, Texas, an elementary school teacher was charged with child injury after it was claimed that she dragged a 5-year-old girl across the floor when she didn’t throw a fork away.
Jenny Alicia Dominguez, 44, of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) was seen on surveillance video grabbing 5-year-old Fany Castro and dragging her by the hair, according to the local news outlet.
According to a witness who talked with police, the confrontation at Katherine Smith Elementary was started after Castro allegedly refused to throw a fork in the trash.
The witness alleged that the dual language teacher warned the young girl, “Don’t be a brat,” in addition to describing Dominguez’s actions as “irrational” and “out of control.”
Authorities asserted that surveillance video showed Dominguez seizing the child by the arm and hair, throwing her off balance, and dragging her to the garbage can.
“It made me kind of furious at the teacher and school district, which is supposed to be a safe place for the kids to learn, play, and not to worry about anyone mistreating them,” Castro’s mother, Patricia Saldana, told the local outlet.
Saldana said the girl was left with a small cut and swollen arm after the incident but that her daughter also suffered emotional wounds.
“She doesn’t feel safe. She tries to leave the school. She just doesn’t seem like she was,” she said. “She was happy to go to school every day.”
Saldana asserted that the instructor also victimized her in other ways.
“My daughter stopped eating, because she said her teacher called her fat, that she didn’t need to be eating,” the mother also claimed.
“HISD takes these situations very seriously, and the safety and well-being of our students is always our absolute top priority,” an HISD spokesperson said in a statement. “ISD PD was notified of an allegation of misconduct and the educator was immediately reassigned pending the outcome of the investigation. Due to the Family Education Rights Privacy Act and the pending investigation, HISD will not provide additional information.”
According to the local outlet, Dominguez was charged with a felony for harm to a kid but had not been apprehended or put into custody as of Friday.
