Teacher Under Fire For Allegedly Organizing Girl Fights At Tallahassee Middle School
KEY POINTS
- A middle school teacher has been arrested and accused of organizing girl fights in Tallahassee
- Angel Footman admitted to having poor classroom management skills but denied organizing fights
- Girl participants did not immediately identify Footman but said she was helpful
A 23-year-old middle school teacher has come under fire for allegedly facilitating classroom fights in Tallahassee.
Angel Drew Footman faces four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to court documents filed in Leon County, WCTV reported.
An affidavit supporting the arrest warrant for the young teacher was issued last Thursday. Not long after this, Footman denied the accusation of holding organized fights at the Griffin Middle School.
According to Tallahassee authorities, Footman allegedly had rules and also warned students not to pull their hair.
"Footman stated outright that she knows she has poor classroom management skills," Sheriff's Detective Hannah Parry stated in the documents.
Footman eventually turned herself in to authorities at Gadsden County and was booked in jail on Friday, according to an official statement by the Leon County Sheriff's Office.
However, the teacher was released two hours later, per the Gadsden County inmate records.
The affidavit was a result of numerous interviews with faculty members and students. That included the girls from other classes involved in fights that went to the sixth-grade classroom of Footman.
The girls also, at some point, had Footman as a teacher. Some of them were allegedly called out of other classes to participate in the fights.
The middle school teacher denied the allegations of her calling out the girls to participate in the fights.
Further, the documents also included two fights that were staged on Mar. 22 and Mar. 23. Six girls reportedly took part in the encounters but none of them were injured.
There were also videos of the fights; one clip captured a voice that school administrators claimed was Footman's.
"30 seconds, no screaming, no yelling, no phones," a voice from the video could be heard saying.
Some of the participants in the affidavit said the fights were planned. However, the girls did not outright say that Footman organized them. They suggested that their teacher was helpful.
As part of the terms of the fights, all girls who participated were required to remain friends afterward.
Footman's arraignment was set for May 4, according to New York Post.
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