JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — DCPS confirms ESE Site Coach at duPont Middle and Jacksonville City Councilmember Tyrona Clark-Murray (D-District 9) has been removed from classroom duties and ordered to have no contact with students pending the outcome of an HR investigation.
Action News Jax confirmed through anonymous sources that Clark-Murray is accused of kicking a student.
Sources confirm to Action News Jax the incident involving Clark-Murray and a 13-year-old male student in a communications and social skills program happened on Tuesday.
According to DCPS’ website, the district’s CSS program serves students with “Autism Spectrum Disorder, Intellectual and Emotional Disabilities, Developmental Disabilities, and Speech/ Language Impairments”.
According to our sources, Clark-Murray told district police the student kicked her first, and she kicked him back to stop him from kicking her again.
Our sources also confirm Clark-Murray self-reported the incident to the school principal.
Those sources tell us the student suffered bruises and scratches on his shin from the kick, but his parents declined to press charges.
DCPS confirmed Clark-Murray has been, “temporarily reassigned to a role with no student contact pending the outcome of a human resources investigation”.
Duval School Board Member Melody Bolduc (District 7) issued the following statement on the situation.
“While the investigation must be allowed to run its course, I think this moment also highlights a much larger issue that deserves public attention. Our ESE teachers and paraprofessionals work with some of our district’s highest-needs students every single day, often in extremely challenging circumstances,” said Bolduc. “No student should ever be harmed by an adult. At the same time, many people do not realize that our educators are regularly bitten, kicked, slapped, pinched, scratched, groped, and physically assaulted while serving students with significant behavioral and emotional needs. These incidents happen far more often than the public understands.”
Meanwhile, Councilmember Rory Diamond (R-District 13) chimed in on social media.
“Violence against a student is never acceptable. Hard to imagine removal isn’t appropriate, but going to read the police report,” Diamond wrote in response to Action News Jax’s initial article on the incident.
We’ve requested the incident report filed by DCPS police but have not yet received it.
We also reached out to the Councilmember directly.
She declined to comment but did not dispute the basic details of the incident as they were relayed to us by our sources.
Action News Jax also reached out to the City Council President for comment on how this situation could impact Clark-Murray’s work on the city council.
He declined to comment on the specifics of the situation, but did note Clark-Murry’s standing as a councilmember would likely only come into question if she were to be criminally charged or indicted.
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