DCPS says that amid an active investigation into councilwoman Tyrona Clark-Murray, she has been “reassigned to a role with no student contact.”<\/p>\n
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A member of the Jacksonville City Council who is employed with Duval County Public Schools has been reassigned after an alleged assault on a student.<\/p>\n
District 13 Councilman Rory Diamond confirmed with First Coast News that District 9 Councilmember Tyrona Clark-Murray, who was employed at duPont Middle School as an ESE teacher, had self-reported an incident in which she had been kicked by a student, to which she kicked them back.<\/p>\n
“I think everybody was just absolutely shocked and disturbed by this whole thing,” Diamond says. “You try not to jump to conclusions, so we’ll look at the police report and see what it says. If it’s as bad as it looks, you usually don’t get to keep serving the public when things like that happen.”<\/p>\n
Diamond says that city council is determined “to get to the bottom of this.”<\/p>\n
“Kids, especially special needs kids, need adults to advocate for them and speak up for them,” Diamond says. “Let’s get to the bottom of this and see what the right result is, but so far it just doesn’t look good.”<\/p>\n
DCPS says that amid these allegations, Clark-Murray “has been temporarily reassigned to a role with no student contact pending the outcome of a human resources investigation.”<\/p>\n
School board member Melody Bolduc provided the following statement:<\/p>\n
“While the investigation must be allowed to run its course, I think this moment also highlights a much larger issue that deserves public attention. Our ESE teachers and paraprofessionals work with some of our district\u2019s highest-needs students every single day, often in extremely challenging circumstances.<\/p>\n
No student should ever be harmed by an adult. At the same time, many people do not realize that our educators are regularly bitten, kicked, slapped, pinched, scratched, groped, and physically assaulted while serving students with significant behavioral and emotional needs. These incidents happen far more often than the public understands.<\/p>\n
During Teacher Appreciation Week, I believe it is important that we acknowledge not only the dedication of these educators, but also the intense demands placed upon them. Our teachers need stronger support systems, proper staffing, training, resources, and safe working environments so they can continue serving students with compassion and professionalism.<\/p>\n
I also want to give a special shout out to our ESE teachers and paraprofessionals. I often tell them they are some of the most selfless, patient, and underappreciated heroes in public education. The work they do matters deeply, and many of them continue showing up every day with extraordinary love and commitment for students who need them most.”<\/p>\n
First Coast News has reached out to both the offices of Councilwoman Clark-Murray and President Kevin Carrico. At the time of publishing, we have yet to hear back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DCPS says that amid an active investigation into councilwoman Tyrona Clark-Murray, she has been “reassigned to a role…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-262801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}