Downsville Community Charter School. Google Maps Image

Lack of discipline and excessive behavioral problems exhibited by students in the classroom are frequently discussed topics these days. There are many theories on what is causing the issue—soft parenting and lax rules enforcement in schools, social disruptions created by the pandemic, an absence of corporal punishment, the absence of God, broken homes—and just as many theories on how to fix the problem. Back in the Dark Ages when I was still in high school, I once watched a gym teacher bounce a basketball off the head of a kid who wasn’t paying attention after he had repeatedly told the kid to quit talking.

Harsh? Maybe. But it went off the back of his head, not his face, and it definitely got the kid’s attention. The kid quit talking and listened to Mr. Radovich, the rest of us got a good laugh, and the class moved on. No harm, no foul. Would such a response by the teacher be accepted today? Probably not.

Teachers today grapple with how to maintain a disciplined environment, most of them hamstrung by overly lenient policies enforced by school boards out of fear of lawsuits and bad press. Might be why a large number of teachers have left the job to find other careers in recent years.

But one Louisiana teacher still toiling away at educating America’s youth took his efforts to enforce order in his class to extremes. It’s still not clear if Robert Mitcham, 70, thought he was being effective in his unusual attempt at getting his students’ attention or whether he was having a true “Falling Down” moment. According to the New York Post, Mitcham “threatened to shoot his third-grade class, warning students that some ‘would not survive’” and that there were “too many of y’all to get rid of,” because he “only had six bullets in his gun.” Terrified students, parents and administrators all agree the teacher took it, well, a lot too far. So did police.

Mitcham, a gym teacher at Downsville Community Charter School, was arrested and charged with terrorizing after a parent reported the incident to the Union Parish Sheriff’s Office. According to the sheriff’s office, Mitcham allegedly told his third-grade students that he “had bullets for his gun and would bring it to the school and shoot,” sending waves of fear through the classroom.

The parent who reported the incident told authorities that their child, along with others in the class, was terrified. Mitcham later explained to investigators that he felt overwhelmed and was simply trying to get the students to settle down, insisting that he never meant to threaten them.

Two days after the incident, Mitcham was arrested and held on a $15,000 bond. He was barred from returning to the school while the case remains pending. According to KJCT News 8, Mitcham was remorseful and apologized to the students after an older student reported the situation to another teacher.

Union Parish Sheriff Dusty Gates emphasized the importance of vigilance in school safety, reminding parents, “If you see something, say something.” Gates encouraged parents and students to communicate with school resource officers about any concerns, particularly those related to potential violence.

The principal of Downsville Community Charter School, Tony Cain, refrained from discussing the incident in detail but refuted the claims made by the reporting parent. He said the first-hand accounts from students who witnessed the event did not fully align with the allegations circulating on social media. Cain reassured the public that the school is confident in the accuracy of the students’ accounts.

Mitcham’s future, both as an educator and a free man, remains uncertain as the investigation continues. As the debate over school discipline and teachers’ struggles to manage increasingly chaotic classrooms grows, this incident raises hard questions about where the line should be drawn. As isolated an incident as this is, it, unfortunately, also lends some ammo to those opposed to recent moves in some states to allow teachers to carry concealed firearms in the class in order to help deter school shootings.

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34 COMMENTS

    • Getting an eraser thrown up side your head was normal for repeat offenders. In today’s world that is not allowed.

      But cursing at teachers and hitting them is allowed. Because they don’t want to tarnish their records.

    • “too many of y’all to get rid of,” because he “only had six bullets in his gun.”

      Right, arm the teachers, what could go wrong?

      “a gym teacher bounce a basketball off the head of a kid“

      Setting aside the fact that the teacher was setting a bad example by using casual violence as a discipline tool, I have two words for y’all:

      Subdural hematoma

      In the episode related in the article above, a hit to the rear of the head can cause significant whiplash forces that are also dangerous to the developing Neuro system.

      Just because a child is unruly doesn’t mean they should suffer traumatic brain injury.

      • “Right, arm the teachers, what could go wrong?”

        well, what could go wrong is a mentally ill killer entering the school and the staff and students are defenseless. But that would, apparently, be fine with you.

        • Nope, I’m fine with a reasonable number of SRO on campus at all times.

          Isn’t it interesting, I was able to reply to your comment without insulting your intelligence.

          • What could go wrong with armed SRO’s on campus? Uvalde? Marjory Stoneman Douglas?

            No group is perfect. Realist recognize that fact. You apparently are not a realist, miner.

            • “No group is perfect“

              Correct, including teachers who you advocate being given the doubled tasks of educating and nurturing the development of children, as well as providing secret service level armed protection.

              No group is perfect, but I would submit that a trained and experienced armed law enforcement officer could, overall, do a better job providing safety and security on a school campus than a teacher engaged in full-time educational activities.

              Of course, I realize you think otherwise, and everybody has an opinion…

              • “Correct, including teachers who you advocate being given the doubled tasks of educating and nurturing the development of children, as well as providing secret service level armed protection.”

                But that’s not what would happen so quit mischaracterizing it. Armed teachers would only react if a threat was present, and the rest of the time they are “educating and nurturing the development of children” (hopefully).

                So its a falsehood they are being given a “double duty”. Its completely voluntary. When they are running and hiding the kids or barricading doors are they doing the dramatic “double duty” then? Are they “educating and nurturing the development of children” when the killer shows up in the classroom, do they say “Hang on a sec Mr. Killer, I got me some educating and nurturing to do so you need to wait”

                You and the rest of the left wing has completely distorted this. All these many teachers and many parents and experts and survival and common sense and natural human right and inherent natural reflex is asking for is a chance in that imminent moment, that right then moment in time, to act as nature intended and built into the human species to preserve lives. And there is no SRO or police force on earth that can assure that preservation of life in that imminent moment when the killer arrives, only the victim there at that moment in time with the chance can have a chance to do that.

                But, you don’t want those teachers to be able to choose being armed in schools and ready to have that chance for their students and them if that imminent moment arrives. You are not really interested in saving lives, you are more interested is pushing the left wing democrat agenda to not let teachers be armed.

          • “Nope, I’m fine with a reasonable number of SRO on campus at all times.”

            But that’s exactly the function an armed teacher would perform when it was needed, as an SRO would. So you should not object to armed teachers then.

            “Oh!” your will now proclaim “but but they are trained law enforcement.” yada yada yada blah blah blah…. yeah, well, that “trained law enforcement” angle worked out so well in Uvalde, and the SRO thing worked out so well in Parkland and several other places where the SRO either did not a act, did not act quickly enough, or was on the other side of campus while in the class rooms up close and personal the mentally ill killer had free reign and the victims were defenseless but that’s ok according to your theory because an SRO was on campus.

            I’m pretty sure you do not have a firm grasp on this subject.

      • Oh lord Miner. Two words: Carpal Tunnel from clutching your pearls so hard. You needed a ball bounced off your noggin a time or two methinks.

      • Thank God you are alive now and not in WWII because we certainly would have lost Guadalcanal and Bastogne had you been there, you big sissy.

  2. So many things listed as a cause for disruptive students. But the lack of a father in the home is not mentioned.

  3. “Back in the Dark Ages when I was still in high school, I once watched a gym teacher bounce a basketball off the head of a kid who wasn’t paying attention after he had repeatedly told the kid to quit talking.”

    Once when I was in high school we had a substitute teacher for a two week period, in
    french language class. He had this annoying habit of sometimes flinging books at students who didn’t answer questions correctly in french. I was in that class, a girl I was interested in was taking it so I selected it as one of my electives to be in the class with her. One day this teacher asked me a question in really poorly constructed french. I answered in french with “Your french isn’t very good.” and here comes a book and smacks me right in the head and he sends me to the principals office for being a smart ass. 20 minutes later the police came into the class, cuffed him, and placed him under arrest for aggravated assault.

  4. “If you see something, say something.”

    Unless you’re wrong about some brown kid. Then, the entire country will denounce you as a racist, and the kid will get an invite to the White House.

    • “Unless you’re wrong“

      Yes, there are consequences for making unjustified accusations of criminal activity.

      “Unless you’re wrong about some brown kid“

      Its not just brown kids, it’s black kids, too. Just another form of institutional racism when the education authorities unfairly target minorities for extreme discipline by involving law-enforcement.

      The kid brought a home built digital clock to school to show his science teacher, his English teacher freaked out and called the cops without talking to the science teacher to ascertain if it was actually some sort of a explosive device.

      “The local police were called, and they questioned him for an hour and a half. He was handcuffed, taken into custody and transported to a juvenile detention facility, where he was fingerprinted and his mug shot was taken.“

      No matter what color the kid is, they should not be arrested, handcuffed and incarcerated without good reason.

      But it is true, it’s mostly children of color who are being arrested for bringing science projects to school.

      It is a non-subtle way to disincentivize minority kids from pursuing science and technology careers.

      “Florida Girl Arrested Under Similar Circumstances as Ahmed Mohamed Has Advice for Teen
      Like Ahmed Mohamed, Kiera Wilmot was arrested in 2013 while in high school.
      By NICOLE PELLETIERE
      September 17, 2015, 7:48 PM ET”

      Fortunately, the majority establishment was not able to hold this girl down, she’s an engineering student at Florida Polytech.

        • “in which case there will be hell to pay“

          That really depends on what you say, if you merely relate a suspicion or concern there probably won’t be a problem.

          But if you actually allege criminal activity without credible evidence, then you may have a problem.

          • If it’s been drilled into your head to say something if you see something, then it’s up to the authorities to take appropriate action after you say something. It’s out of your hands at that point.

            How about changing it to, “if you see something, conduct your own investigation, then maybe say something as long as you are certain.” Then you’ll ask why nobody said anything after the bodies hit the floor.

      • Unless you are a reporter on TV and say that the only way to stop Trump is to “put a bullet in him”. Seems to only go one way.

  6. Who among us hasn’t been sorely tempted to ‘bust a cap’ into a kid that smarted off to them once too often? 😉

  7. I was an AF Master Sergeant teaching Arabic at Goodfellow AFB TX in the early 90s and had a student fall asleep in class once.

    A flying Arabic dictionary bounced off his nuts. He never fell asleep in class again.

  8. I propose creating a tradition of shock-collaring; when kids turn 13, they get a shock-collar – if they are good, we take it off when they graduate high-school.

    Everybody over 40 gets a button.

    Or maybe that is too extreme – how about we just put shock-desks in high-schools?

    /s, maybe…

  9. Don’t send your kid’s to public school. Unmentioned are all the pervert teacher’s getting their jollies torturing kid’s. We had those types in grade-high school. Especially beating girl’s. This ain’t the 1960’s where a teacher marries an underage girl he knocks up(It happened in Kankakee,Illinois). Seriously my Geometry teacher🙄

  10. “Teacher Threatens to Shoot Unruly Third-Grade Class” (sarcastically it seems, but it was frightening)… and every law abiding gun owner in the country is automatically a bad guy by anti-gun accounts.

    But, up to ~23,000 ‘gender identity transitions’ forced on kids younger than 12 years old annually since Biden took office resulting in ,collectively, ~23,000 serious injury/death for these kids younger than 12 years old, being subjected to ‘pseudo science experiments’, the greatest ‘mass injury/death’ intentionally inflicted on school age kids in American history and its a ‘transition good vibes joy joy joy’ underlying campaign slogan for democrat politicians and its somehow a good thing and if you say anything against it you are ‘transphobe’ and being ‘violent’ and the anti-gun orgs and anti-gun people who supposedly are all about ‘saving lives’ are mute and trans get invited to the White House to bare their fake ‘womanly’ breasts and get their own holiday because they ‘imagine’ they are women. But in the mean while, law abiding civilian gun carriers have stopped just shy of 55% of active shooters, including some trying to enter schools (where the law abiding person could be with a state permit), since Biden took office and not a word about it in the left wing media, or from anti-gun about the lives saved, and FBI ignores it in their numbers, fortunately the police reports exist and the witnesses exist.

  11. As a member of Meacham’s age group, I can verify that his comment is well within the normal range of sarcastic, over-the-top quasi-jokes for our clade. I recall one teach opining that my gym-induced black eye was over due; the punch line being that she had a massive shiner, too.

  13. I can fix public education in about 5 minutes.

    1. Make it optional – not mandatory. If the kids and parents don’t value an education – feel free to try to make it in the world without it.

    2. Expel any kids that are behavior problems. Fix that at home. Schools are not supposed to raise kids.

    3. Any parent that wants to place their kid in private school should receive all the funds that would have gone to that kid in public school. The money should follow the child.

    4. Deunionize the entire education system. Education should serve parents and kids – not a trade union.

    5. Eliminate the Federal Department of Education. It’s not one of the enumerated powers and education belongs to the states per the 10th amendment.

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