A Tennessee elementary school teacher is facing assault charges after she allegedly grabbed a nonverbal nine-year-old boy and dragged him across a rug, leaving the child with what school staff described as a “blood red mark” and “carpet burn” on his body.
Meg Day, 49, was booked into McNairy County jail on Thursday. She has since been released. The incident came to light on March 19, when a McNairy County Sheriff’s Office deputy was dispatched to Selmer Elementary School in Selmer, Tennessee — a small city located roughly 100 miles east of Memphis.
Two witnesses had separately reported that a school employee had attacked a child, according to the area NBC affiliate WMC. Day allegedly took hold of the nonverbal boy by the lower half of his body and dragged him across the rug. A fellow employee witnessed the child reaching toward his back shortly afterward and noticed what they described as a “blood red mark.”
The school nurse examined the student and determined he had suffered carpet burn as a result of the incident, according to Memphis WREG. Both the principal and assistant principal of the school were informed.
Day was subsequently arrested, though records indicate she has since been released from custody. The case has drawn heightened attention in part because it is not an isolated incident within the same school district.
Just days before the alleged attack at Selmer Elementary, a separate troubling incident unfolded at nearby Selmer Middle School, which falls under the same McNairy County School District umbrella. In that case, authorities say 65-year-old Sequoia Ann Hively, a lunch worker at the middle school, was captured on video slapping a 15-year-old student on the back of the head.
The student was checked by the school nurse and was found to have no physical injuries, but the incident was taken seriously by school leadership. The superintendent informed the teenager’s father that Hively would not be permitted to return to the school until the matter had been fully resolved. Like Day, Hively was arrested and subsequently released from jail.
The back-to-back incidents at two schools within the same district have raised uncomfortable questions about student safety and staff conduct in McNairy County. Selmer Elementary serves a community that places particular trust in its educators to protect some of its most vulnerable students among them nonverbal children who may not be able to communicate when something has gone wrong. Neither case has been fully adjudicated, and both women remain out of custody as the legal proceedings continue.
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