PINELLAS PARK – Authorities in Pinellas County, Fla., are investigating accusations that two school teachers enlisted two older boys to beat up younger students in the classroom as a form of discipline, and then tried to thwart a police probe of the incident, MyFoxTampa reported Saturday.
The principal of the Oak Park Partnership school in Pinellas Park, Fla. is also accused of helping one of the older boys suspected in the beating escape arrest, according to the report.
Darrell Delaney, the father of the 14-year-old victim, Evan Delaney, told MyFoxTampa on Friday that one of his son's teachers, Roslyn Holloway, left the classroom and came back with two older boys, who she instructed to beat up his son and some other boys as a way to discipline them. Delaney said a second teacher, Brian Alexander, sat behind his desk and laughed while the assault took place.
"They shoved two of them out of their desks, grabbed my son by the back of the neck and shoved his face into the desk, shoved another one against a wall," Delaney told MyFoxTampa.
A resource officer at the school reportedly alerted the Pinellas County Sheriff's office to the incident.
In a written statement issued Friday, the school claimed the younger boys were harassing the female teacher. The school's principal also issued a statement Friday, saying that the school is also investigating the incident and that the staff involved has been suspended.
Although none of the faculty members involved have been formally charged yet, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office is referring criminal charges against them to the State's Attorneys Office.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox