5th grader claims he was body-slammed by HISD teacher: 'He's supposed to feel safe at school'

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Imagine this: You go pick up your child from school, and he tells you a teacher body-slammed him.

It happened to a northeast Houston mother, and now she wants the teacher to face the consequences.

"The teacher - he was pushing me and pushing me," fifth-grader Chad Huff said. "I kind of like pushed him off me, and then he slammed me. He picked me up and dropped me to the ground."

Huff admits he and another student were fighting in the gym at Shadydale Elementary when the teacher stepped in to break it up.

But he and his mother believe the body slam went too far.

"I'm not understanding why he had to do all that," Huff's mother, Jamonica Ragesdale, said. "He's 10. You are a teacher - supposedly high authority. You couldn't handle a 10-year-old conversation?"

It happened at noon on Monday, but his mother says she didn't find out about it until she picked her son up from school.

"One, two, three, four. Four hours went past, and no call, no nothing," Ragesdale said. "What if my son was unconscious? (Were) y'all going to call me then? This man is over 200 pounds, and he took my son and slammed him on the ground. They just keep saying, 'I'm sorry, 'I'm sorry.' I just don't feel like, where was the urgency to call me at noon when it happened?"

Houston ISD officials won't confirm what happened but tell ABC13 the employee involved has been reassigned pending the results of an internal investigation.

District officials wouldn't tell us where the teacher is now, what he has been reassigned to, or whether he is facing criminal charges.

"I really don't know what to say to him because he's supposed to feel safe at school," she said. "And I'm supposed to feel safe letting you go to school and not being in my care for eight hours. I don't even know what to do. I really don't."

The mother has since met with HISD police and says she hopes the teacher is criminally charged.

For more on this story, follow Pooja Lodhia on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram.