Parents concerned weren’t part of investigation

Published 10:31 pm Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Some parents of special needs children in Murray County Schools are coming forward, saying the teacher who was caught on videotape slapping a special needs student may have been physical with their children as well.

Shari Clanton, 55, was arrested on Friday and charged with simple battery following a May 2 incident at Bagley Middle School during which the 13-year Murray County Schools veteran was caught on camera slapping a male special needs student, according to law enforcement officials. The school’s principal witnessed the event as well, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), which took over the investigation at the request of the Murray County Sheriff’s Office.

Some parents say no one from the GBI or the school system contacted them about an investigation, and now that Clanton’s arrest has been made public, past concerns about bruises and marks left on their children are being seen in a completely different light.

While the slapping incident happened in a hallway during a fire drill, according to Murray County Schools Administrative Services Director Mike Tuck, there are no surveillance cameras in the classroom.

“She slapped the boy in front of people, and if she can do that, what has been going on when those kids are behind closed door in the classroom?” said Nicole Cortez, whose daughter was in Clanton’s class. “Nobody let us know what was going on, and I am upset (the school) hasn’t even called me back.”

Clanton, who was released on a $500 bond, was suspended with pay and was expected to resign, Tuck said earlier this week. Calls to a phone number listed to Clanton have gone unanswered, and messages left for Decatur attorney R. Stephen Roberts, who Tuck said is Clanton’s attorney through the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, have not been returned.

The parents say the first they knew of any problem in their children’s classroom came last Friday, almost three weeks after the incident happened. The parents are upset they were not included in the investigation into Clanton’s actions.

Three mothers said they had seen their children come home from Clanton’s class in the past with marks or bruises but didn’t think anything untoward was going on in the classroom. When one of the women told Clanton her son said Clanton was being mean to him, Clanton laughed it off and said the student didn’t like her because Clanton made the boy do all of his work, the woman said.

“He has said, ‘Teacher is mean,’ and he has come home with marks before,” said Brea Hodge, who has a 13-year-old son named Cory with Down Syndrome at the school and who said she has sent pictures of the marks to the GBI. “When I took the picture, it was over a week after the marks had come up. You can tell it is where someone grabbed him on his arm and just jerked. I feel heartbroken because he had told me and I didn’t believe him. He told me she had pushed him in the floor, and I asked her and she laughed it off.”

Murray County Schools officials say there have never been any complaints against Clanton in the 13 years she has been with the system. She has taught at Bagley for the past six school years.

Some parents of her students and past students say they see a pattern.

“I did have concerns with marks on her upper arm like someone was pulling her arm,” Cortez said of her daughter. “You just don’t want to think that is happening. Now that I have talked with other parents, it just makes you wonder more and more. I had never mentioned the bruises, but I kind of wish I had before now.”

Christina Tallent no longer has a daughter at Bagley, but said when news of Clanton’s arrest came out and other mothers took to social media, she had already seen the signs of what the other mothers were talking about.

“I knew Miss Clanton for four years and I really thought she was a good teacher,” Tallent said. “But when I saw another parent posting about bruises, and her daughter couldn’t talk and was having the same kind of behavior problems, I was seeing exactly what had happened to my daughter as well.”

Tallent’s daughter Haley, 16, is blind, has hyperthyroidism, diabetes and behavioral autism.

“She came home with bruises several times, but I didn’t ever suspect that she could have been hit by a teacher,” Tallent said.

The parents are concerned they weren’t contacted by investigators or asked questions   between the time of the incident and Clanton’s arrest. Hodge said she asked school officials where Clanton was and was told she was on vacation.

Tuck said because of the ongoing investigation and confidentiality requirements concerning school personnel, school officials were prohibited from commenting about the situation.

“My understanding is that the parents weren’t told anything,” Tuck said. “There are two things working. Information that I have is there was an investigation started by the GBI and we were instructed not to discuss the case in order to not compromise any information. Also, it is a personnel issue and we don’t discuss those with parents, staff or students.”

GBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Joe Montgomery said since Clanton’s arrest has been made public, he has talked with other parents who have had concerns with their children’s time in Clanton’s class. He said the GBI is investigating every allegation.

“We are getting calls and as we are getting those calls, we are interviewing people as they call,” Montgomery said. “We are doing what we are doing and as they call in and as people give us information, we will look at the information, so this is still a very ongoing situation.”

Montgomery said anyone with concerns about any form of abuse in schools should contact the Murray County Sheriff’s Office, and both he and Tuck pointed out that no previous complaints had been brought against Clanton.

“I certainly don’t mean to trivialize the parents’ concerns, but any allegations that Miss Clanton has in any way harmed other children before is uncorroborated and unsubstantiated,” Tuck said. “We have never had any complaint before regarding any actions by Miss Clanton. We take all situations as seriously as if they were our own children, but I earnestly believe it is an isolated incident. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise.”

“No parent of any child in that room has brought any complaint until after the charges became public,” Tuck said. “Then, we have heard from the parents. I don’t mean to minimize their concerns, and we are very regretful and sorry it happened. If we had any indication that she had done anything like this or been capable of doing something like this we would have addressed it as soon as we had known about it. It has never been anything on the radar. In fact, she has been an exemplary educator for all these years.”

Hodge isn’t so sure.

“You don’t just wake up one day and say ‘I am getting fed up with it’ and hit a kid,” said Hodge, who said she has hired an attorney to look into the incident. “When I heard about the story, I started squalling, and I knew right then that he (her son) had been telling me the truth. He has been repeating these same things since January. My son is stubborn and can be hard to handle, but if she can’t handle that, she doesn’t need to be teaching those kinds of students.”

Clanton had previously worked at Eton Elementary and Woodlawn Elementary before moving to Bagley.