Some shocking news has come out of the Michelle Obama STEM Academy in Clayton County, Georgia, this week.
According to a Friday report from local Atlanta outlet WSB-TV, Tony McCrear — a school administrator from the academy — body-slammed and injured a fifth-grade boy during the school’s lunch period.
Specifically, court documents obtained by WSB-TV claim McCrear “physically without provocation and outside the scope of his duties lift the juvenile over his shoulder and intentionally threw him to the floor while confronting said student regarding his behavior during lunch” in violation of the law.
The boy’s mother, Jessica Champion, claims the injuries sustained have forced her son to put his arm in a sling.
At the time of the incident, a school resource officer attempted to pull McCrear off of her son.
The family’s attorney Sarah Flack believes this case is open and shut.
“At worst we have a fifth grader who didn’t follow instructions. That happens. That’s what fifth graders do. We have an administrator who didn’t know how to handle that and committed a felony offense,” Flack said, per WSB-TV.
Flack claims that the Michelle Obama STEM Academy has a video of the incident.
The attorney has urged the school system to release it.
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“Families’ parents deserve to know what really happened so we want transparency, we want accountability, we want to know, we want to see what happened,” Flack said.
McCrear will be represented by a public defender.
The school was previously named Eddie White Elementary School after Eddie J. White, a school administrator who had worked in the Clayton County public school system for over 40 years, according to the Clayton News Daily.
When White, an African American, began his career, the Georgian school system was racially segregated.
Nevertheless, the educator managed to work his way up to becoming an assistant superintendent.
In May 2020, district staff requested the Clayton County Board change the elementary school’s name from Eddie White Elementary to Michelle Obama STEM Elementary Academy, according to the school’s website.
The name change went into effect in December 2020 after the district received the former First Lady’s approval.
A middle school in the district, Eddie White Middle Academy, still bears the Georgia educator’s name.
