Boyceville substitute teacher charged with disorderly conduct
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — A substitute teacher in the Boyceville school district has been charged with one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct in connection with an incident involving a student.
Mark G. Mastalir, age 62, of Menomonie, was scheduled for an initial appearance in Dunn County Circuit Court before Judge Luke M. Wagner on January 4.
Attorney Michael J. Fairchild appeared in court by telephone without the defendant, according to online court records.
Fairchild entered a not-guilty plea on Mastalir’s behalf and indicated to the court that Mastalir was waiving his right to a speedy trial.
Judge Wagner scheduled another court hearing for Mastalir March 28.
According to the complaint, Boyceville Police Chief Greg Lamkin was contacted December 3 about an incident of disorderly conduct at Tiffany Creek Elementary in Boyceville.
School personnel told Police Chief Lamkin about an 11-year-old student who was complaining that a teacher had injured him.
A school administrator, who noted the boy had a red mark on his upper right chest, said the boy was crying and had said a substitute art teacher had shoved him into a door and injured his ribs.
When the administrator talked to other students who had been in the classroom, the students said Mastalir had asked the boy to leave the classroom, but the boy refused, and Mastalir then began shoving the boy and shoved him out into the hallway, according to the complaint.
The administrator asked Mastalir about the boy, and the substitute teacher said the boy was not listening and was screaming and shoving other students. When Mastalir told the boy to go to the office, he refused. When Mastalir was asked if he had laid hands on the boy, he said he had not, the complaint states.
The administrator reviewed video from a camera in the hallway and then asked Nick Kaiser, school district administrator to view the video. After that, the administrator and Kaiser told Police Chief Lamkin that they wanted him to review the video.
According to the complaint, Police Chief Lamkin observed on the video that around 3 p.m., students went into the classroom, and at 3:08 p.m., he observed an adult male using both hands to shove a male student. The boy hit the doorframe, and the man pushed the boy again out into the hallway. The man went back into the classroom, and the student was crying and holding his right side. The boy then walked down the hallway where another teacher came out and spoke to him briefly.
The other teacher reported to the administrator that he had heard a student crying in the hallway and that the boy had told the teacher, “He pushed me into the door and hurt my ribs!” “He” was confirmed to mean the substitute art teacher, and when the boy was asked what happened, the boy said he would not do his work, so the teacher had pushed him out of the room and had hurt his ribs.
When the other teacher followed up with the office, he was told the boy was in the health office and the administrator was already investigating the incident, according to the complaint.
Office referral
The administrator informed Police Chief Lamkin she had found a “minor office discipline referral” on her chair, and the report stated the boy had “bullied me & class. Refused to go to the hall. Would not work” and “hit me in the head.”
The administrator said if a student strikes a staff member, that is not a minor referral, but instead requires notifying an administrator immediately.
When Police Chief Lamkin reviewed the video from the hallway again, he noted that Mastalir was shoving the boy repeatedly, and as the boy was pushed backwards, the boy swung his right hand and appeared to slap Mastalir on his face, the complaint states.
On the following Monday, Police Chief Lamkin returned to Tiffany Creek Elementary to interview the students who had witnessed the incident.
The school administrator said she had talked to the parents of the students, and that while some of the students had been traumatized by the incident, the parents agreed to cooperate with the investigation, according to the criminal complaint.
When Police Chief Lamkin spoke to the students individually, he explained that they were not in trouble and that he was conducting an investigation. He asked each of them to explain the difference between the truth and a lie, and each of the students said the truth was what actually happened, and a lie was making something up, and the students all agreed to tell the truth.
Shucked
The first student said the class had been told to draw or talk quietly. The boy who was pushed did not want to draw, so Mastalir told him to get out. The student being interviewed said their regular teacher lets them talk. The student said Mastalir picked up the boy, shoved him into a counter twice, “slammed him into the door” and “shucked” him out into the hallway. The door closed at that point, and the student did not see any more, according to the complaint.
The student said the boy who had been pushed was standing in the middle of the classroom when the incident started, and when asked if the boy had been doing anything, the student said the boy had been talking to a classmate. When Mastalir started pushing the boy, the student said the boy said “stop, stop.”
Each of the students who were interviewed essentially described the same situation — that Mastalir told the boy to leave the classroom and when the boy did not comply Mastalir grabbed the boy by the shoulders and/or the wrist and pushed him out of the room, and in the process, the boy was pushed into the doorframe and/or a set of shelves.
One of the students told Police Chief Lamkin that the previous school year, Mastalir had taken the student’s hat and sat on it, and when the student asked for his hat back, Mastalir shoved him out into the hallway.
When Police Chief Lamkin contacted the student’s mother, the mother said her son had told her about the recent incident at school and also mentioned the previous incident last January with the same teacher. The mother said she did not realize the January incident had involved a teacher or she would have reported it to the school. At the time, she thought it was another student “doing kid things,” according to the complaint.
A “bad word”
When Police Chief Lamkin asked the boy about what had happened, the boy said the teacher had asked him why he was talking, and he had pointed out that the other students were talking. The teacher told him to sit down and be quiet and told him about the drawing project for class, and the boy said he did not want to do the project. Mastalir then told the boy to get out of the classroom, according to the complaint.
The boy said Mastalir “grabbed him by his jacket and started shoving him and slammed him into stuff” and then threw him out of the room. The boy said he had been slammed into a door, a desk and some art supplies, that the teacher had used both hands on the boy’s shoulders and the teacher had grabbed him by his left wrist.
Police Chief Lamkin asked the boy if he had fought back, and the boy said he had hit Mastalir once in the face. The police chief asked the boy if he had said anything to the teacher, and the boy replied that he’d said “a bad word.”
The boy said he stayed in the hallway until his friends took him to the school nurse.
Police Chief Lamkin asked if the boy still had marks on his ribs, and when the boy lifted his shirt, the police chief saw a slight red discoloration on the boy’s right rib cage. The boy said it was “still tender” and that he thought it was from him hitting the door.
Nice face
One of the students told Police Chief Lamkin that after the boy was out in the hallway, the teacher was mad, and all of the students “put on a nice face” because they did not want Mastalir to be mad at them “so it would not happen to them either,” the complaint states.
Another student told Police Chief Lamkin that she had not seen what had happened prior but that she saw Mastalir shoving the boy out of the room. The girl said she was sure the boy “was being a little bit naughty.” When asked what he would have been doing that was naughty, the girl replied “being [the boy’s name].” When asked to explain what she meant, the girl said the boy gets up and walks around the classroom instead of doing the art projects.
Police Chief Lamkin asked if the boy was yelling, screaming or throwing things, and the girl said he was not.
Police Chief Lamkin asked if, instead of being disruptive, the boy was “not being on task,” and the girl agreed, according to the complaint.
The girl said Mastalir had used both hands, and when asked if the teacher’s hands were on the boy’s front or back, she said “both” because the boy was turning around. Police Chief Lamkin asked if the boy was trying to get away or trying to go to the door, and the girl said he was trying to go to the door.
The girl said the other students were quiet after the boy was pushed out of the room, and when she was asked if it was normal for the students not to do their work, she said it was normal. When asked if the boy was doing what was normal for that class, the girl said it was, “but he should have been doing his work.” The girl said “it was normal for him to mess around,” according to the complaint.
Walking
After Police Chief Lamkin had interviewed the students, one by one, on an individual basis, he set up a meeting with Kaiser and Mastalir.
While the police chief was talking with Kaiser, a school administrator forwarded a text message from Mastalir in which Mastalir said he had concerns about working with a certain group of students, and that if he was going to work with those students, “please assign a case worker or rehabilitation specialist to handle children with special behavior needs,” according to the complaint.
When Police Chief Lamkin met with Kaiser and Mastalir, the substitute teacher said he had told the boy to take a time out and sit in the hall if the boy was not going to do his work. Mastalir said when it appeared the boy was not going to go out into the hallway, he “kept walking” and the boy was pushing Mastalir and shoving him.
Kaiser asked if the boy had eventually left the classroom, and Mastalir said he “just keep walking toward the door” and the boy was “pushing on him.” When they got to the door, the boy slapped Mastalir on the face. Mastalir said he told the boy to go to the office and believed that the boy had eventually gone to the office but that he had a classroom of students and did not check to see if the boy had actually gone to the office.
Kaiser asked if Mastalir had put his hands on the boy, and Mastalir replied, “I do not know because it was pretty fast, but I say I just kept walking,” according to the complaint.
When Police Chief Lamkin asked if Mastalir had grabbed or restrained the boy, Mastalir replied, “No, I just kept walking.”
Kaiser asked if Mastalir had called the office, and Mastalir replied, “I think I did later on” and said that calling 111 does not work because when he called the number the other day because of a sick student, he had gotten a voice message “about July break.”
When office staff checked the school’s telephone system, they did not not find a recording about summer on the system, according to the complaint.
Kaiser asked if Mastalir had stepped back when the boy was pushing him, but Mastalir said he “just kept walking him out.”
Safety concerns
Mastalir told Kaiser and Police Chief Lamkin that he had to protect the safety of the boy and the other students in the class, that he has seen students have “outbursts” over the last year and half when they are told to do something, and told about some of the problems with other students, the complaint states.
Mastalir said there was a tray in the art room with scissors and rulers, and he was worried the boy “would grab it and throw it.”
Mastalir went on to say, “The only thing that got hurt by anybody that day was his ego. Had he picked up that handful of something and threw it, I have no reason to believe he did, but I did not have time to sit and think about that, but I just remembered indistinctly the safety of the students and the classroom.”
Mastalir said the boy was stubborn and resistant but that Mastalir does not know the boy’s “background,” according to the complaint.
When Kaiser said the boy had bruise on his side, Mastalir replied, “Oh.”
Kaiser told Mastalir the boy said Mastalir had run the boy into a counter, and Mastalir shook his head “no,” and when Kaiser said the other students said the boy was tossed into the hallway, Mastalir said the boy did not get tossed into the hallway.
When Police Chief Lamkin said he had talked with several of the students, who all reported Mastalir had grabbed the boy by his shoulders and had run the boy into a counter and the doorframe, Mastalir said he did not recall the boy running into anything, and when he was told the students had said Mastalir repeatedly pushed the boy, Mastalir replied, “They can say what they want. I just kept walking,” the complaint states.
When Police Chief Lamkin asked if Mastalir knew the protocols for calling for assistance, Mastalir said he did not remember them “and did the best he could” and did what he had to do to keep the students safe.
During the meeting with Kaiser and the police chief, Mastalir “kept talking about a hypothetical scenario of [the boy] throwing objects and hurting someone,” according to the complaint.
When Police Chief Lamkin asked if the boy had ever been violent, Mastalir said he did not have to wait and see if the boy would be violent, and based on the other students, he responded “the way he had to.”
Mastalir also talked about previous students having disagreements about hats and said the students were allowed to wear hats on Friday “if they pay for it,” and that he took hats from several students who had not paid. Mastalir said the students had tried to trick him and that later on, he had found the hats he had taken away had been “disturbed.”
Mastalir said the students accused him of sitting on the hat, but there was not anything physical, “just arguing and bickering and resistance to instruction,” the complaint states.
Disorderly conduct
Kaiser told Mastalir that Kaiser thought the substitute teacher had not made “the correct decisions on how to handle the student,” but Mastalir said he disagreed.
Police Chief Lamkin noticed Mastalir was staring intently at Kaiser and also noticed veins on Mastalir’s forehead were throbbing, the complaint states.
Police Chief Lamkin told Mastalir he had interviewed the students and reviewed the hallway video that showed Mastalir pushing the boy into the doorframe and the hallway.
The police chief told Mastalir he was “going to print him a notice to appear in court for Disorderly Conduct. Mark told me, ‘Well, I would disagree. I think I handled the situation correctly,’” according to the complaint.
Disorderly conduct is a Class B misdemeanor that, upon conviction, carries a penalty of a fine of up to $1,000 and/or 90 days in jail.