Barnstable Teacher On Leave After Intervening In Student Fight

A Massachusetts high school teacher caught on video grabbing and pulling a student to the floor while intervening in a fight has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, school officials say.

“The teacher exhibited actions contrary to the values and expectations of Barnstable Public Schools,” district Superintendent Meg Mayo-Brown wrote to the school community, the Cape Cod Times reported Friday.

The students were having a dispute Thursday morning in an eighth-grade classroom at Barnstable High School, she said. The eight-second video was shot by another student.

The video circulating widely on social media shows the teacher running to catch up to a student, who is chasing another student. The teacher grabs the student, spins him around, and takes him to the floor. The student strikes a filing cabinet as he falls, and can be heard moaning.

The student was checked out by the school nurse but was not taken to the hospital, Mayo-Brown said.

The teacher's name was not made public.

A police report was filed and the school district is conducting its own investigation, she said.