An assistant principal at Redan Middle School School is back in the building after an investigation into allegations he body-slammed a female student were declared “unsubstantiated,” school officials said.
The student, eighth-grader Jada McClenton-Russell, and her mother, Janae McClenton, told WSB-TV last month that the girl and another student got into a fight at the school in Lithonia.
The assistant principal, Kerry Stroud, attempted to break up the fight. A video of the incident, posted on Facebook, shows Stroud picking Jada up from a lunch room table and dropping her to the ground.
“The Office of Legal Affairs has completed the investigation into the allegations of employee misconduct regarding Mr. Kerry Stroud,” a statement from the district says. “OLA has determined that based on the statements and other information reviewed during the course of the investigation, including the videotape of the incident, the allegations are unsubstantiated.”
DeKalb County School District officials, responding to an open-records request, said the district does not keep records on the number of misconduct charges against school administrators that are investigated.
Stroud was the third administrator removed from his school in three months. Also in March, an administrator at Miller Groves Middle School was investigated after a student said the man, Brian Kelly, had hit him, resulting in a scar. According to a report on the incident, witnesses said the male student had banged his head against several items, including lockers, and Kelly had not touched him.
In January, Lakeside High School Principal Jason Clyne was removed from the school after allegations he told janitors during a meeting, among other things, that he was the “master of this plantation,” referring to the school. An investigation into Clyne discovered several unfinished investigations into other allegations, including sexual harassment. Clyne resigned in March, but officials have said he is serving out the remainder of the school year working from home on assignments given to him by the district.
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