A Richland One parent is upset after a substitute teacher was arrested and accused of beating her kid during a class change in March, one parent has spoken out.
Leslie Lovett, 27, has been a Richland One School District substitute teacher (page 5) since 2018. He was arrested on May 2nd and charged with assaulting a student at Southeast Middle School on March 21st. He was released on bond. The mother of the student is furious that this could happen.
The individual is still a district substitute teacher, and the parent wants to see significant changes.
“Emotionally, he didn’t want to go back to school. There were things being said on social media about him. He was embarrassed,” said the mother about her son.
The concerned parent, who did not want to be identified, expressed concern about her son’s emotional well-being. Her son, a seventh-grader at Southeast Middle School, and Lovett got into a heated exchange while students were changing classes, according to an incident report from the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, after Lovett said, “He does not live in a trailer park and is not on welfare like the victim and his mother.” The victim approached Lovett at that point and was shoved to the ground.
“For Lovett to be a mentor, he doesn’t exhibit the attributes that a mentor should,” the mother continued. “I feel he should not be in any classroom with children.”
Lovett’s teaching certificate expires in June 2021, according to the South Carolina Department of Education website.
Without greater training and higher pay for replacements, Patrick Kelly of the Palmetto State Teachers Association fears there will be more incidents.
“In February, the Center for Education Recruitment and Retention Advancement released that there were 1,121 vacant teaching positions statewide,” said Kelly. “You really are looking at a piecemeal, hodge-podge process across the state of what goes into recruitment and training of a substitute teacher. Unfortunately, the need is so great right now, districts don’t have time to engage in two to three-month training in preparation for subs because the need is immediate in the classroom.”
“It just seems like nothing is being done,” the mother also said.
Richland One School District officials were asked if there will be any penalties for Lovett in the future, and if there were any plans to change policies, and provide more substitute training. A spokesperson referred us to a website, but our questions were not directly answered.
