A Teacher Was Handcuffed After Questioning The Superintendent’s Pay Raise At A School Board Meeting

Deyshia Hargrave, a 32-year-old English and language arts teacher at Rene A. Rost Middle School in Abbeville, addressed the school board while they were considering a vote to approve Superintendent Jerome Puyau's contract with a $38,000 pay raise, WGNO reported.

She was later arrested and charged with resisting an officer and remaining on premises after being forbidden, according to a police report sent to BuzzFeed News.

"I have a serious issue with a superintendent or any person in a position of leadership getting any type of raise," Hargrave told the board. "I feel like it's a slap in the face of all the teachers, cafeteria workers, and any other support staff. We work very hard with very little to maintain the salaries that we have."

Noting that class sizes had grown, Hargrave told the Vermillion Parish School Board that it was "unspeakable" and "absurd" that the superintendent was getting a raise "when teachers are working this hard, and not even getting a dime."

"It's a sad, sad day to be a teacher in Vermillion Parish," Hargrave said.

She told BuzzFeed News on Tuesday that the district had been carrying out teacher cutbacks and that staff members were being treated unprofessionally while facing increasing demands.

"It's not fair that the little money we have is going to the top and not to the teachers and support staff," she said. "It just didn't seem right to me that the superintendent was getting a raise when no one else is getting one."

Hargrave said that she had heard the superintendent was already making a salary of around $110,000.

She added that the superintendent was always getting credit for the teachers' work and that his raise of $38,000 equaled the annual salary of a teacher, or two cafeteria workers, or two janitors.

During the meeting, her comments prompted board president Anthony Fontana to rule Hargrave out of order during the meeting, KATC reported. Hargrave, however, told BuzzFeed News she could not recall if he said so or not.

After the board voted to approve Puyau's contract with the raise, Hargrave once again expressed her frustrations, but was stopped by an Abbeville city marshal officer, who told her, "You're going to leave or I'm going to remove you."