The school resource officer at Romeo Elementary School in Dunnellon was called Thursday after the dean of students found out about a first-grader being “physically aggressive” toward another student and staff members.
The dean told the resource officer, who is a Marion County sheriff’s deputy, that the female student had taken a lanyard from a hook in the physical education room to “aggravate another student.” The girl then slapped a male student across the face with the lanyard and her hand, a sheriff’s office report states.
The 6-year-old girl refused to let go of the lanyard and continued to attack the other student – even when staff members tried to intervene. She was blocked from the other student and eventually removed from the classroom and placed in a suspension room at the school, located at 19550 SW 36th St. in Dunnellon, the report says.
After about 10 minutes, the student confronted the woman watching the room. She told her “to get out of her life” and then started pushing the woman, the report says.
The school’s dean requested the incident be documented by the sheriff’s officer per Marion County School Board policy. Both parents were contacted and the mother of the child who was slapped said she didn’t want law enforcement action taken against the 6-year-old girl.