A Florida teacher facilitated classroom fights among girls at her middle school, even announcing rules and warning students not to pull hair, authorities in Tallahassee said Monday.
Angel Drew Footman is charged with four counts of contributing to a delinquency of a minor, according to court documents in Leon County. Arraignment was scheduled for May 4, court records show.
It wasn’t clear if she had an attorney. The public defender’s office for the area did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An affidavit filed to support the arrest warrant for Footman, which was issued Thursday, said she denied organizing the fights at Griffin Middle School in Tallahassee.
The author of the document, Leon County Sheriff’s Office Det. Hannah Parry, wrote that the teacher offered this explanation: “Footman stated outright that she knows she has poor classroom management skills.”
Footman, 23, was booked into jail Friday after turning herself in to deputies in neighboring Gadsden County, the Leon County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Monday. She was released two hours later, according to inmate records from Gadsden County.
The affidavit is said to be based on numerous interviews with faculty and students, including girls involved in the fights, some of whom came to Footman’s 6th-grade classroom from other classes to participate, the document stated.
All the girls had had Footman as a teacher at some point, the affidavit said. Some “were called out of other classes to go engage in these fights,” it said.
Footman denied calling the girls out of those rooms, it said.
Two fights took place March 22 and one on March 23, the document states. They involved six girls who paired off, it said. No one reported being injured.
Videos captured a voice school administrators said belonged to Footman, the detective wrote. The voice appeared to present rules: “30 seconds, no screaming, no yelling, no phones.”
She also intervened, at least verbally, a few times, the document said. At…
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