A Dunham mother says the gym teacher her 11-year-old son claims slapped him is only getting a slap on the wrist from the Eastern Townships School Board.
Julie Perkins was livid when her son Wyatt Patch came home with a mark on his face, hours after he says he was slapped by his gym teacher.
“It was infuriating,” she recalled. “The amount of anger that goes through you, and wondering, why [did this happen].”
According to 11-year-old Patch, an argument last May with a classmate from gym class spilled out into the hall, and that’s when his gym teacher approached him from behind, turned him around and slapped him.
“He hit me directly around the eye on my face,” he said in an interview with CTV Montreal. “My eye was swollen and red and I had tears coming down.”
Perkins told CJAD 800 News a mark was still visible on her son’s cheek by the time she saw him when he came home from school.
Perkins also says that while the argument between the two children may have gotten physical, a boy twisting another boy’s arm was no reason to be hit by an adult.
“I am sure if my kid came to school with a mark like that I’d have youth protection called on me,” she said.
Perkins says she immediately contacted police. The Eastern Townships School Board suspended Benoit for three months as a police investigation continued, but ultimately decided on a punishment of a 10-day suspension without pay after police ended their investigation without charging him.
Several students apparently saw the incident, but according to Perkins, there was no adult witness to corroborate the story for police.
Among the witnesses was Jade Gaudreau.
“He went up to Wyatt and slapped him in the face, and after, he said, ‘How did you like that?’” she said.
The Eastern Townships School Board confirmed the incident occurred to CJAD 800 News.
However, the chair of the board says the context and intentions of the teacher’s actions are still not known, despite admitting an internal investigation determined determined firing Jean Benoit was unwarranted.
“The incident is not contested as such; the severity of the incident is the only thing that is being debated,” said Eastern Townships School Board Chairperson Michael Murray. “It was a blow that could have been accidental, or could have been the result of deliberation.”
“It could have been momentary lapse of judgment. It could have been many, many things.
“It is not grounds for ending the career of a human being who has committed a quarter of a century to education.”
Benoit was set to return to Heroes’ Memorial Elementary on Nov. 14 after serving his suspension, but on Monday, Sharon Priest, a communications consultant for the Eastern Townships School Board, confirmed he would not be coming back to the school.
Priest could not specify what Benoit’s new role will be, or what school he could be teaching at following his suspension.
For Perkins, it’s just sweeping the problem under the rug.
"It's like putting a bandaid on a booboo, when some other people are going to have to deal with him now,” she said.
Perkins created a Facebook page called Parents Alert to try and connect with other parents and see if alleged incident was an isolated one, but according according to a handful of parents and at least one former student, it was not.
Most of the concerns shared were about how he spoke to children in his charge. A classmate of Patch also said he was routinely insult and swear at kids.
“I don’t think he should be teaching,” Perkins added. “It's not an isolated incident and it’s been going on for a long time and the kids just haven’t been heard.”
Requests for comment from Benoit and his union were not returned.
—with files from CTV's Tarah Schwartz