JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville mother is demanding answers after her nonverbal autistic son came home with a large scratch on his face.
She told Action News Jax’s Zion Decoteau that this is not an isolated incident.
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Versace Greene, 6, goes to Pinedale Elementary School in Lackawanna. His mom, Antonique Greene, is keeping him home until she can get answers about the injury.
“My son came home off the bus visibly distraught, and I noticed that he had a scratch, slash going across his face on top of his forehead to the bottom of his lip,” Greene said.
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Greene said a school official told her they weren’t sure how it happened and they’d pull footage from the school bus to see if the injury happened on board or at the school.
In text messages provided by Greene, a school official tells her it could take up to 72 hours to see the footage. Greene says she has yet to see that video.
She said the school did a preliminary investigation.
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“It was told by a sub teacher that’s not his teacher that she did see him with that scratch on his face before he got on the bus,” Greene said. “They tried to present the possibility of another child that’s nonverbal could have done it.”
The way Greene tells it, the scratch incident didn’t happen in a vacuum. She provided Decoteau with three other incident reports. Greene’s biggest complaint: her son was coming home thirsty. She said Versace is a picky eater and she can only get him to drink ginger ale.
“I was told that the teacher at the time stated that she did not give it to him on purpose because she felt like the ginger ale made him hyper,” Greene said.
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The school’s incident report said the now-former Pinedale substitute teacher didn’t give the special needs 6-year-old the soda because he had trouble opening it independently.
Greene is requesting her son be transferred to a new school.
Duval County Public Schools said it has made the school’s regional superintendent aware of the parent transfer request and will work with the principal to discuss this request and other solutions.
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