Teacher’s Aide Caught On Video Beating Special Needs Kids In Classroom


An Atlanta teacher’s aide has been arrested after a video taken by a horrified teacher showed him, and another aide, slapping and choking an autistic student in a classroom. The teacher says she made the video because the two aides previously denied abusing the student, as well as another 11-year-old special need student, and the kids are unable to tell their story because they lack the ability to communicate verbally.

The teacher who made the surreptitious video was identified only as “J,” because she said she feared recriminations from other school districts where she plans to look for a new job. She has left her job in the Atlanta Public Schools. She says that she witnessed the two aides, Alger Coleman and Keisha Smith, abusing the kids, but when she went to school administrators, they didn’t believe her.

“If they don’t believe me verbally, maybe I should set up a video,” said “J.”

Coleman and Smith denied the allegations when confronted, “J” added. But she said she witnesses more incidents than she could take without doing something about it.

“I haven’t been the same. I haven’t been able to return to work,” she said.

Coleman has been arrested. But Smith still works for the school district, though she has been transferred out of the special needs class and faces disciplinary action.

On video, she recorded Coleman slapping one of the autistic children on the head so hard that the boy fell out of his chair. He also can be seen putting the helpless boy in a choke hold.

“It was outrageous, heartbreaking,” said Sherry Cheeley, mother of one of the special needs children who suffered the abuse, who said that the school district never contacted her to tell her what happened to her child.

“I actually got the call through (the Division of Family and Children Services),” she said told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The school never notified me of this incident. Never.”

Coleman has been charged with child cruelty and battery in connection with the alleged abuse of the special needs children.

A spokesperson for the Atlanta Public Schools, KImberly Green, said the school could not comment on personnel issues. But she added, “Atlanta Public Schools can confirm that Alger Coleman is no longer with the district and Ms. Smith has been reassigned pending a disciplinary conference.”

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