JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Only on Action News Jax, we\u2019re hearing from a Sandalwood High School student who says his JROTC instructor used his belt to make him walk another student like a dog.<\/p>\n
The student did not want to be identified, but Action News Jax\u2019s Madison Foglio also spoke with his mother. She says this story needs to be heard so that nothing like this can happen to another child.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was cruel and it was inhumane and I felt truly humiliated,\u201d the student said. <\/p>\n
This is how one 16-year-old JROTC student felt after he said his instructor decided to punish him and another student by removing his belt and having them use it like a leash.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had her put it on me, and had me put it on her, and he had me take her phone and record her on the leash while another student gave her dog commands such as sit down, roll over, shake,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Duval County Public Schools did not identify the instructor but confirmed with Action News Jax that the district and school police are investigating an incident involving a JROTC instructor at Sandalwood High School on Tuesday. They also told us a report had been made to the Department of Children and Family Services.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n You can read their statement to us here:<\/p>\n I can confirm that both school police and the district are actively investigating concerning allegations involving an ROTC instructor\u2019s actions in a classroom at Sandalwood High School on Tuesday. The instructor has been removed from the school and classroom pending the outcome of all investigations.<\/p>\n While the presumption of innocence applies, the reported behavior is unacceptable and does not align with the high expectations we hold for our educators or our unwavering commitment to student dignity and well-being. Principal Hatcher echoed this in the message he shared with families.<\/p>\n Because this is an active investigation, we are unable to provide additional details at this time. For your reference, we have included the principal\u2019s message below.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cI was emotionally destroyed,\u201d said the student\u2019s mother. <\/p>\n She says she had no idea anything had happened until DCPS called her Wednesday afternoon to ask permission to interview her son for an investigation involving his JROTC instructor.<\/p>\n \u201cI asked him why he didn\u2019t tell me anything and he literally told me that he felt so humiliated and so bad he couldn\u2019t even fathom to verbalize to tell me something,\u201d the student\u2019s mother said.<\/p>\n Now she wants to make sure that nothing like this happens again.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think that a human being like that should be dealing with teenagers,\u201d the student\u2019s mother told Action News Jax. <\/p>\n Action News Jax is working to confirm the name of the instructor. <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Only on Action News Jax, we\u2019re hearing from a Sandalwood High School student who says…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":687957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,15619,57518,5229,15621,13816,26459,119721,3188,723,11561,7310,288578,425,29917,30170,276800,258813,57513,28496,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-687956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-action_news_jack","tag-action_news_shacks","tag-america","tag-ben","tag-ben_becker","tag-dcps","tag-department_of_children_and_family_services","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jrotc","tag-local","tag-madison","tag-madison_foglio","tag-rotc","tag-sandalwood_high_school","tag-tanika","tag-tanika_hughes","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116307021514210262","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n