Video of a student punching and attacking a substitute teacher at Palm Beach Lakes High School in Florida is going viral, and school officials are investigating the filmed incident.
WPTV reports that the footage was posted to Facebook with the caption, "BoI only at Palm Beach Lakes smh…" World Star Hip Hop has since picked up the video, drawing more than 841,000 views as of early Tuesday afternoon.
The video begins with an unnamed student and the substitute teacher -- identified by students as Mr. Smith or "Smitty" -- standing face-to-face in an argument. The student then shoves the teacher and punches him. The teacher tackles the student, chasing him until the teen runs out of the room. It's unclear what the brawl was about, but students interviewed by WPTV spoke highly of the teacher and said students should show respect for him.
"A teacher should, you know, stand up for himself, but not to go on ahead and you know," Palm Beach Lakes High senior Darrel Phillips told the station. "I'm speechless right now."
School officials declined comment on an open case, but say that the substitute teacher has been fired and the student was expelled.
A similar incident at Washington state's Gig Harbor Middle School has one teen's parents also calling for a teacher's termination. Cell phone footage surfaced in August showing more than a dozen students dragging the then-eighth-grade boy around the classroom. They carry the boy by his arms and legs, bury him under chairs, write on his feet and stuff socks in his mouth. The antics last about 15 minutes while teacher John Rosi watches, and later joins in.
Rosi pokes the teen int he stomach and pretends to sit on him, chiding, "I'm feeling kind of gassy." Rossi apologized for the incident, but said he did not "view the incident as anything more than harmless childhood horseplay and a chance for the kids to take a break from the daily grind."
And David Pecoraro, once a math teacher at Beach Channel High School in New York City, was reassigned to an administrative office after a video of him swatting at and spitting on a student surfaced online.
Secret video in other schools across the country have also revealed shocking teacher behavior. Last November, 15-year-old Julio Artuz secretly recorded video of his Bankbridge Regional School teacher verbally abusing him. After asking that he stop calling him "special" the New Jersey teacher responded with threats and explicit language:
"...I will kick your a-- from here to kingdom-come until I'm 80 years old."
After the video surfaced, the school put the teacher on paid leave and launched an investigation.
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