Springfield district removes teacher from classroom in alleged abuse case

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- The Springfield school district has moved a teacher out of the fifth-grade classroom, after parents alleged their disabled daughter was forced to crawl up steps and across the floor rather than receive assistance in walking.

Teacher Patricia Wright was reassigned to a non-classroom job while the district investigates the allegations by parents Taci and Jim Mathers, whose daughter attends Bissett Elementary School.

Separately, the district is investigating allegations that an elementary teacher molested children at Roundtree Elementary School. The male teacher was arrested Monday but has not been charged.

Springfield police spokesman officer Matt Brown said the teacher was arrested after officers investigated an allegation called in to a child abuse hot line on March 2. Brown would not say exactly how man children were allegedly abused.

The school district declined to comment except to say it was working with police on the matter and that the teacher had been removed from the classroom.

In the Bissett Elementary case, school board Superintendent Norm Ridder said the district's investigation, which he earlier hoped would be done by Tuesday, was continuing in part because other agencies, including the state Department of Social Services, were involved.

In that case, Taci and Jim Mathers said they had asked Bissett Elementary School in January to provide an aide to help their daughter, Jacqueline, who has cerebral palsy and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, after recent surgeries hampered her ability to walk.

She frequently uses a walker or wears a gait belt that lets others steady her while she walks.

Taci Mathers said school officials didn't refuse to provide an aide but made it clear they felt Jacqueline would be better off without one.

The parents claim Jacqueline's teacher made the girl crawl up concrete steps and across the classroom floor to her desk rather than help her in walking.

During a tape-recorded meeting with the Matherses, Wright said she made Jacqueline crawl instead of walk out of concern that she might fall and hurt herself.