A teacher who physically removed a 10-year-old child from his class for misbehaving and hurting the child will be allowed to continue in the profession.
August Junior Leaupepe was working as a teacher’s assistant at Flat Bush Primary School in South Auckland, New Zealand, in July 2019 when the incident occurred.
His class was doing a word search, but the boy took another student’s work and refused to give it back.
When Leaupepe asked him to give it back, the boy said, “You’re not the boss of me.”
Leaupepe answered yes, but the boy said: “No, he’s my dad.”
The teacher grabbed the back of the boy’s shirt with both hands, causing his feet to lift off the ground.
He then forcibly took the boy to the classroom door.
Throwing open the door with one hand, he forcefully threw the child onto the outside deck.
A New Zealand teacher has been disciplined by a professional tribunal after physically lifting and throwing an unruly 10-year-old boy out of his classroom (file image pictured)
This left the boy with temporary breathing difficulties, as well as suffering scrapes, bruises and general pain on his right side.
Leaupepe later told police he did not drag the student, but rather picked him up and escorted him out of the classroom.
He said the boy was holding his arm and he let go, which is probably why he fell.
Although Leaupepe could not say how the boy was injured, he acknowledged that his grip “made him hard.”
In March 2021, Leaupepe admitted one charge of assaulting a child but was acquitted without conviction in Auckland’s Manukau District Court.
Mitigating factors included Leaupepe’s guilty plea, his genuine remorse, his lack of prior convictions, the offer to participate in restorative justice (which the student refused) and to pay the boy $300 reparation.
The boy’s caregiver said the boy was initially hurt and upset, but had “gotten over it.”
In a decision released Wednesday from a hearing held last year, the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal found Leaupepe guilty of serious misconduct and said his use of force was unjustified and unreasonable.
The Court held that there were other ways he could have addressed the boy’s behaviour, so he was censured and ordered to undertake professional development.
Leaupepe was also ordered to pay $1,582 in costs, according to a report from the New Zealand Herald.
However, the court also found that, as an inexperienced teacher, Leaupepe had not received the necessary support and was in “a precarious position”.
The 10-year-old boy who was physically removed from class suffered temporary breathing difficulties along with bruises and scrapes (file image in photo)
She said Leaupepe would benefit from professional development with more support in classroom management and managing student behavior.
“The court does not want Mr Leaupepe to be lost in the teaching profession, particularly at a time when Pacific teachers are in short supply,” the court said in a statement.
Despite being allowed to continue working in the profession and his previously stated goal of becoming a fully-fledged primary school teacher, Leaupepe indicated in 2022 that he no longer wanted to return to the classroom.
