Louisiana substitute teacher arrested for allegedly bribing students with $5 each to bully and attack their classmate
VIVIAN, LOUISIANA: A substitute teacher from Louisiana has been arrested for allegedly paying students to bully their classmates. The claimed attack was organized by Aadrina Salean Smith, 24, a substitute teacher at North Caddo Elementary Middle School in Vivian, Louisiana. The Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office reported that on August 23, during a PE class, she allegedly offered to pay five separate students $5 each to bully a classmate. Smith was arrested on September 12 by the Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office.
The sheriff's office as mentioned on their Facebook post was able to collect video of Smith chatting with five students and appearing to congratulate the three who took her bribe. While the substitute instructor watched, the middle schoolers tackled their classmate lying on the gym floor. Smith didn't assist the victim or file a report. A complaint of the alleged assault was made to the school district when the youngster told her mother about it. After being fired from the Caddo Parish School District, the substitute teacher was taken into custody at the Caddo Correctional Center on a $10,000 bond. Currently, she is accused of five counts of contributing to the delinquency of juveniles and malfeasance in office.
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The Sheriff’s office claimed that more charges might be coming for her in the future. Sheriff's office spokesperson Bia Roldan told Louisiana Radio Network, “They were informed – by the school actually – that the substitute P.E. teacher encouraged other students to push down or tackle a classmate in exchange for money. That student was left on the ground, while the teacher appeared to congratulate these students after this happened. It is definitely not the kind of thing that you would expect to happen in a school. But, thankfully, people took action and somebody said something.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Caddo Parish Public Schools said in a statement to NBC, "The Caddo Parish School Board expects employees to conduct themselves professionally and in the interest of students at all times. Throughout the investigation, the district and school have fully cooperated with law enforcement." Bullying and violence are widespread in American classrooms. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that in 2019, 22% of pupils aged 12 to 18 reported being bullied at school.
According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey conducted in 2019, 8% of high school students reported participating in at least one violent altercation on school grounds in the previous 12 months. More than 7% of respondents reported being harmed or threatened with a weapon at school, such as a gun, knife, or club. Nearly one in ten high school students reported missing at least one day of class in the previous 30 days due to concerns about their safety at school or on their commute home.