Videos of students fighting in a Georgia middle school classroom while a teacher is present have resulted in calls to fire the teacher — but she responded to WSB-TV about the issue and said, “What do you want me to do? … Those kids are bigger than me.”
WSB published a story about the issue last week, showing cellphone videos appearing to depict students fighting each other in a Rex Mill Middle School classroom in Clayton County.
According to TheBlaze, The station said in one video the teacher breaks up a fight — but in another sits back at her desk. WSB said there were claims that the teacher encouraged students to fight.
A Clayton County middle school teacher is coming under fire after videos surfaced that appeared to show her allowing students to fight one another as she watched.@wsbtv pic.twitter.com/MLBXIH5NxS
— Larry Spruill Jr (@LarrySReports) March 25, 2023
The station added that in one of the dozen videos it obtained, the teacher appears to ask, “Do you know how to slap box?” WSB noted that other students can be seen in the background standing on chairs and desks to record the fights.
But the teacher told the station in a follow-up story she isn’t encouraging fighting. When a WSB reporter asked the teacher in question, Janette Bagtas, if she encouraged the fighting, Bagtas replied, “No, ma’am, not by any means am I encouraging.”
Bagtas — a mother of two who has taught sixth through eighth grade at Rex Mill for seven years — added to the station that fighting is what students chose to play during classroom free time. She added to WSB that free time is known as incentive time in the district.
