On October 2, 2018, a teenage student was threatened then burned with a lighter after failing to complete a three-page assignment in just 20 minutes. The incident occurred at New Millennium Business Academy in the Bronx, NY. According to Great! Schools, the school is far below the state average for test scores, which suggests the students aren’t performing at grade level. The academy was previously in the news in 2017 after test grades were shown to be slightly improving while its neighboring school, Junior High School 145 Arturo Toscanini, was failing.
Although this is the first time a Bronx teacher has threatened to use a lighter on a student, Bronx students have done worse. In February 2018 a white middle school teacher told her black students to lie on the floor so she could step on their backs to “show them know what slavery felt like.”
There might be some horrible teachers out there, but teachers like Alhassan Susso show what it means to be a great teacher. The Bronx educator was awarded New York State Teacher of the Year in September 2018. His advice to teachers is, “it doesn’t matter what’s in the lesson plan or how knowledgeable you are if your students don’t know how much they mean to you.”
Teacher Taunts Student
The teacher, who was subbing for the regular teacher, has been identified as Alexander Jorge. Jorge taunted the 13-year-old student by walking around the classroom with a lighter and telling the teenager that he would be burned if he did not complete the assignment.
The 47-year-old substitute teacher at New Millennium Business Academy in Bronx, NY got close enough to the student to cause his arm to bruise.
The Charges
The teenager along with his parent reported the incident the next morning, which led to Jorge being arrested. He was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment.
Jorge has been a substitute teacher since 2014.
In a statement to News 12, Department of Education spokesperson Doug Cohen wrote, “These are deeply troubling allegations, and we immediately suspended this substitute teacher without pay pending the resolution of his criminal case.”
