Parents criticize discipline after students meow at teachers

SAN ANTONIO - About all that is certain regarding the bizarre situation with fifth-graders in Junction is that when the teacher says to hush, responding with meows isn't the brightest idea.

And maybe forcing the entire fifth-grade class to crawl down the school's track, meowing as they went along, wasn't a well-thought-out disciplinary response.

Upset Junction parents are venting on Facebook, and the city police in the town 120 miles west of San Antonio have opened an investigation. The Texas Rangers are being called in.

"There's really nothing I can tell you at this point except that we are doing a full investigation," Superintendent Renee Schulze said. Junction Police Sgt. Edward House declined to comment beyond confirming police are looking into the matter.

All scraped up

Marybel Anguiano's son, Francisco, was involved in the Wednesday incident and didn't go to school Thursday.

"Our kids came home with scraped knees and hands," Anguiano said Thursday. "It was 90-something degrees and the track was hot, with a lot of rocks."

Another mother, Liz Molina, said her fifth-grade daughter, Alicia, won't be going back to school for the rest of the year.

"She's upset. She can't trust the teachers. I understand the teachers made a poor decision, but our kids trusted them," she said.

Molina said she is also withdrawing her other three children from the public school district and will home-school them for the remainder of the school year.

According to the account given to Molina by her daughter and confirmed by others, some of the fifth-graders were being loud and rowdy in the halls Wednesday. In response to warnings from their teachers, some students responded by meowing, she said.

Crawling along track

Molina said she understands four teachers and about 50 kids were involved. But what began as a plan to have the kids run a few laps on the school track apparently escalated into compulsory crawling and meowing, she said.

"They want to act like cats, they should be treated like cats, and meow," was a remark she said her daughter attributed to one teacher. Afterward, she said, some kids visited the school nurse.

jmaccormack@express-news.net