Teacher Sued for Child Abuse After Asking Student to Pick Up Trash

[Anchor]

There are moments when teachers must offer stern guidance to properly educate their students, but in today's environment, many teachers feel they cannot. We bring you the story of an elementary school teacher who has been suffering through criminal and civil lawsuits filed by a parent, all because the teacher asked a student to pick up trash they had left behind.

Reporter Jeong Ban-seok has the story.

[Reporter]

An elementary school in South Chungcheong Province.

In May of last year, the parents of a fourth-grade student sent a message to the teacher, claiming that their child was being bullied because the teacher failed to take proper action after they requested that their child be separated from a classmate who was bothering them.

The matter had already been concluded by the School Violence Countermeasures Committee as not constituting school violence. However, the parents' message included remarks such as, "Are you trying to lecture a parent without even apologizing?" and "You claim to be raising a child, but you have no sensitivity or empathy. What have you done so right that you are raising your voice?"

[Elementary School Teacher: I was terrified to receive these messages; my heart would race, so I blocked them. Then they called the teachers' office and said, 'Are you crazy?' and 'I will turn this school upside down.']

The Office of Education's Teacher Rights Protection Committee determined the parent's behavior to be an "infringement on educational activities," but what the teacher received in return was a criminal complaint for child abuse.

The parent claimed that the teacher had committed emotional abuse by making only their child pick up the trash.

[Elementary School Teacher: I have always taught students in their daily lives that they should pick up the trash they have left behind themselves. I feel incredibly wronged by the claim that I singled out that child to cause them harm.]

The parent also cited as evidence of child abuse the fact that the teacher asked the student to find a spot to take a group photo, and then ignored the student after they sent the photo. However, police investigations revealed that the message the teacher had sent to the student was actually "Thank you."

It took two months for the teacher to be cleared of the child abuse charges by investigative authorities.

The parent then filed an additional complaint for defamation, claiming the teacher gave false testimony to the Teacher Rights Protection Committee, which took another four months to be dismissed as groundless.

A civil lawsuit filed on the grounds that the teacher caused the child mental distress is still ongoing.

[Elementary School Teacher: In reality, child abuse charges have long been called 'crimes of hurting someone's feelings.' I think it is an overly harsh punishment to be subjected to such lawsuits for over a year. It is truly difficult to provide 'true education' in this environment.]

The parent in question maintains that the investigative authorities' decision of no charges does not mean the teacher is innocent.

[Parent: I do not consider it 'no charges.' In any case, the school failed to protect (my child). That is why I filed an application for court review. I am just following legal procedures, and I don't understand why that is being made into an issue.]

According to the Ministry of Education, 95% of teachers reported for child abuse are either not indicted or not booked by the police.

Reported by Jeong Ban-seok | Video by Kim Se-kyung | Video Editing by Yoon Tae-ho | Graphics by Park Tae-young | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.