LAKELAND, Fla. — An elementary school parent was arrested Wednesday after the Polk County Sheriff's Office said she began yelling and cursing at the school staff.
Mechelle Smith, 39, was charged with battery on a school employee, disrupting a school function and trespassing on school grounds.
It all began when Smith arrived at around 11 a.m. at Medulla Elementary School on School House Road and began yelling and cursing at school staff in the main office, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said. The employees asked her to calm down and stop cursing because there were students nearby.
According to the sheriff's office, "Smith was upset because her child had received discipline referrals from a teacher and wanted her child removed from the teacher’s classroom."
A nearby school administrator overheard the disruption and approached Smith who was demanding that her child be placed in another class. The administrator reportedly told Smith a meeting could be arranged to discuss her child's behavior and the potential of placement in a different class.
"Smith then told the school administrator she was there to retrieve her child and walked past school staff toward the classrooms," the sheriff's office said.
As the school administrator yelled for Smith to stay in the main office, Smith continued to yell, the sheriff's office said, and she was then accused of pushing the school administrator and attempting to open a set of locked hallway doors.
Once Smith realized she couldn't open the locked doors, she left the school building and jumped over a gate to flee the school, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said. She then called the PCSO Emergency Communications Center and told the person over the phone she was at CVS on South Florida Avenue and would wait for deputies.
Smith was booked into the Polk County Jail and later released on a $1,500 bond.
"Here is a right way and a wrong way to present concerns to school administration," Sheriff Grady Judd said in a statement. "This is an example of how to go about it the wrong way. Our teachers already have the difficult task of educating our children, and we will never allow anyone to come on our school campuses in this manner, assaulting staff and disrupting classes. That conduct is a guaranteed trip to the county jail."
