A middle school teacher was handcuffed and removed from a school board meeting after criticising the superintendent's pay rise, reports ABC affiliate KATC.
Credit: KATC
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Deyshia Hargrave, a 32-year-old teacher at Rene A. Rost Middle School in Abbeville - part of the Vermilion Parish schools system - began asking questions about the board's consideration of a $38,000 (£28,100) pay-rise for the superintendent of the school system.
"I have a serious issue with a superintendent or any person in a position of leadership getting any type of raise," Hargrave told the board. "I feel like it's a slap in the face of all the teachers, cafeteria workers, and any other support staff. We work very hard with very little to maintain the salaries that we have.
"I don't care if the performance targets are met - you're making our jobs even more difficult. We're meeting those goals, while someone in that position is getting a raise? It's a sad, sad day to be a teacher."
She continued: "When I first started teaching there was like 20 kids in a class and now there are 29 kids in a class, and we have not have been given raises. How are you going to take that money? It's basically taking it out of our pockets."
However, despite speaking calmly, it wasn't long before an officer stepped in and urged her to stop, forcing her to leave the room.
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In the hallway she was then restrained and handcuffed, while being told to stop resisting.
"I am not, you just pushed me to the floor," she said.
She continued: "Sir, I am way smaller than you."
Abbeville's city attorney and prosecutor, Ike Funkerburk, has said that the marshal who arrested her was a school resource officer who is employed by the school board, and 'was not acting in any official capacity on behalf of the city of Abbeville'.
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Speaking to BuzzFeed, she said that the district had been carrying out teacher cutbacks, and that staff were being treated unprofessionally despite facing increasing demands.
"It's not fair that the little money we have is going to the top and not to the teachers and support staff," she said. "It just didn't seem right to me that the superintendent was getting a raise when no one else is getting one."
The issue of funding in education is a huge problem across the US. According to Education Week, a survey of 'more than 1,800 public and private school teachers conducted in the 2015-16 school year' revealed that the average American educator had to spend $600 (£440) of their own money in order to rustle up basic school supplies for their students.
Since posting the video footage, KATC has reported that the school's board president, Anthony Fontana, thinks the incident was a 'set up'.
Featured Image Credit: KATC