How a Teacher Can Get Away With Beating & Spitting On Kids In Douglas County Schools

UPDATE:

A parent steps forward to recount the problems her daughter has had with Mrs. Rush. This parent’s statement is in response to a comment made by someone on my blog who discounts what is being said. Thank you Kim for speaking up. 

It’s really a shame.

Simply put: if you want to get away with mistreating kids in Atlanta or surrounding area, you must be white or at least be ALISHA RUSH!

This apparently must be the case since Black educators are sentenced to serve major time for testing discrepancies (not condoning) and yet a white teacher can beat the hell out of kids at Beulah Elementary school, spit on them, bully and mistreat them and keep her job like it’s A-OK.

It’s a shame that in Douglas County Schools kids lives don’t matter. It just doesn’t. No one can say that school officials care about kids. Right now everyone is focused on Atlanta Public Schools and fixing the problems there, but there are some real, deep-seated problems in Douglas County schools lying right outside to the West of Atlanta. Tonight I was watching the news and a black teacher was on TV defending the fact that she didn’t kick a child. Not sure if it’s true or not but I started thinking, Wow. I’m in the midst of dealing with a white teacher who has been found to BEAT children in my daughter’s classroom; who bullied and degraded my child and yet this woman still has her job and nobody’s doing a damn thing about it.

Let me explain. I will state facts and realize I am opening myself up and my child up to be retaliated against by the Douglas County Schools because they are known to do that to parents. But this truth must be told.

My daughter attends Beulah Elementary School and she is in 5th grade and her teacher’s name is Mrs. Alisha Rush. Just a few weeks ago my daughter and her friends started telling me stories of how their teacher beats a child named Philip in the class with a flip-flop. The girls then started detailing how Mrs. Rush, pulls and grabs on students shirts, how she spits in kids faces on purpose, barely works and eats food at her desk all day and says nasty, negative things to them and tries to intimidate them.

This really disturbed me.

I thought it over and over and then decided to email the principal Dr. Cosper. Let me preface this by clearly stating that I like the principal because she is no-nonsense and really tries to get to the bottom of things for the benefit of the children. Dr. Cosper quickly and swiftly conducted an investigation. She asked several children in the classroom about how Mrs. Rush teaches them and she continued to investigate. During this time, Mrs. Rush was “missing” from school for about four days. My hope was that she would be fired. I later found out that the boy she was hitting has a dad who is a Sheriff in Douglas County. Another parent revealed that the dad might have given Mrs. Rush permission to hit his child, however, when another parent called the dad, he said he knew nothing about it. From my understanding, the kids who were investigated did corroborate Mikaela’s story and it was found Mrs. Rush was mistreating the kids.

However this week, on Monday, Mrs. Rush returned to school and continued working like nothing ever happened.

Say what?

However, it was told to her that my child was the whistle-blower and Mrs. Rush thought that she would do what she always does and tried to intimidate Mikaela. However, Mrs. Rush didn’t get the memo that I’m really not the parent to fuck with. And no don’t excuse my French. I mean that with every ounce in my being. While I have never had so much as a conversation with Mrs. Rush because I believe in allowing teachers to do their job to the best of their ability, Mrs. Rush crossed the line too many times and I am NOW speaking out and doing something about it.

Mrs. Rush pulled Mikaela to the side and proceeded to get in her face and confront her about the situation. She called her a liar and said she needs to stop telling lies and told her NOT to ever talk about again in the MOST intimidating and harassing way possible.

Mikaela was scared to death.

Mrs. Rush confronted Mikaela, a child, an 11-year-old child about what she told me about her beating and abusing kids. This is wrong. As a grown woman, an adult who is charged with protecting my child and keeping her safe while in her care for 7 hours, Mrs. Rush had no right to intimidate Mikaela and tell her she’s lying! How is Mikaela lying when Mrs. Rush beat kids in front of everybody? So that means every child with EYES that saw her beat Philip is lying too, huh? Are you mad that Mikaela told Dr. Cosper that you also pull kids into the closet and do something to them? That is just out of line Mrs. Rush. Are you mad that parents are taking the proper steps to call you out instead of cursing you out? I bet she’d rather have me curse her out and go away than to STAND UP and speak out an end to her reign of terror on those kids!

How dare this terrible, uncaring woman confront a child in a place where she is supposed to feel safe and comfortable and confront her about what she saw. Mrs. Rush BEAT the boy Philip IN FRONT OF HER 5th GRADE CLASS> That was unsettling for Mikaela and every child in that classroom. I comfortably make this claim because I have several kids who are witnesses who can back this up. Speaking of lawsuits, I have filed a Civil Rights lawsuit against Mrs. Rush for retaliating against Mikaela, confronting her and harassing her. That is wrong. There is no way this woman should have been allowed back in the classroom. Instead MY CHILD was removed from her class and placed in another class for the remainder of the year for her safety and so she can have a good rest of the year.

However, I was the one who had to be there when she cried on my shoulder because she can’t graduate with her friends on Monday and has to graduate with another class because Mrs. Rush is so immature about the situation. I understand Dr. Cosper’s reason for doing it — because Mrs. Rush is an immature prick who likes to pick on kids and she doesn’t want Mikaela to suffer anymore.

I am just disappointed with the fact that this woman continues to teach and do her job and work around kids when she really shouldn’t be teaching at all. White teachers definitely have an advantage and had it been a black teacher who so much as said the wrong thing— that teacher would have been fired and removed with the quickness.

When will our kids education matter? When will someone step up in defense of children FOR REAL and remove bad teachers who don’t care and use their muscle to harass and intimidate and make them feel unsafe? When will schools hold teachers like Mrs. Rush accountable without passing the buck and making it a point to have ZERO tolerance with bad teachers?

I need answers and I pray that the Douglas County Schools work to truly get to the bottom of this and NOT try to make myself or Mikaela victims of yet more intimidation or harassment.
Justice NEEDS to be done and I won’t rest until it is.

****Update

So sad so many people are cowards and afraid to speak up when it’s the right thing to do. It’s even more sad when kids, especially black kids can’t get justice because everybody wants to believe a teacher is above doing wrong. That is exactly why it took so long for anything to happen with Atlanta Public Schools and that situation. I am disappointed in grown adult people who refuse to help innocent children and who believe those children deserve a half-ass education with a teacher who could care less if they learn and who finds it OK to hit, harass or mistreat them. If you don’t like the way I stand up and speak out, that’s your problem NOT mine. I’ve always been vocal and always will be. No one will ever get away with mistreating my child. Ever.