MARLBORO COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — Marlboro County authorities are investigating accusations by parents that a substitute teacher at McColl Elementary Middle School touched three students inappropriately.
Deputies began investigating on Tuesday after a parent told an officer about an alleged incident involving their child, according to a Marlboro County Sheriff’s Office incident report obtained by News13.
The report said investigators looked at two videos that students had recorded on the school-issued computers. Those videos show the teacher coming over to the student after they had asked for help and then shows the teacher “rubbing the student’s arms and playing with their hair.”
The child’s mother later told investigators that the child had told her that the teacher had put their hands down the back of the child’s shirt and then touched their shoulders, prompting the child to tell the teacher, “don’t touch me.”
At that point, the teacher, according to the parent, grabbed the child “by the face and told [them] it was just a massage and put [their] hands down the front of [their] shirt and touched “bare skin.”
Deputies later met with two other parents who both said their children had told them that the teacher had inappropriately touched them in a similar manner.
Chief Deputy Larry of the sheriff’s office told News13 on Friday that the case remains an open investigation, which is still in the early stages.
News13 is not identifying the teacher because there are no official charges against them.
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Dennis Bright is a digital producer at News13. Dennis is a West Virginia native and graduate of Marshall University. He has won copyediting and journalism awards in West Virginia and Ohio. Follow Dennis on Twitter and read more of his work here.
