New Jersey father charged after confronting student in classroom at Paulsboro High School
PAULSBORO, NJ - A Paulsboro High School parent is facing charges after entering his child’s school and confronting another student in a classroom.
The video of the incident has been circling social media and was even sent to FOX 29.
It shows a parent who was supposed to be picking up his child, entering into a classroom at the high school and immediately confronting a student.
The criminal complaint identifies the parent as Aaron Thomas of Gibbstown.
The video goes on to show Thomas exchanging words with a student, who he is heard in the video saying was allegedly bothering his daughter.
Moments later, it appears that an adult tries to intervene and calm the situation down, when things quickly escalated again, with Thomas beginning to argue with another student in the classroom.
"I think it should have been handled parent to parent instead of student or outside of the school," says Na’Rell Thompson, a student at Paulsboro High School.
Thomas is being charged with several offenses, which include entering an unauthorized section of the school, threatening to punch and knockout a student, and also committing assault, specifically by grabbing the student’s arm and getting in his face.
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"We’ve been talking about it, and I’ve been telling my kids, if it was my son or my daughter, I would have went to the principal and handled it like that," said Preston Barnett, parent.
The Paulsboro Public School District released the following statement on the matter:
"Safety and security of our staff and students is paramount. Unfortunate situations such as these gives us an opportunity to reflect and analyze current practices to further strengthen the district’s safety and security procedures to ensure that our schools are a safe place for all students and staff".
Wednesday afternoon, FOX 29 stopped by the home of Thomas to ask about the situation, but nobody answered the door.
Back at the high school, many parents are just happy nobody got seriously hurt during the incident.
"It’s always something that you don’t want happening, you don’t know if he’s armed, you don’t know if he has a knife or anything, so, it’s very scary," said Andressa Pagliari, parent.
While FOX 29 was at the home of Aaron Thomas, a woman drove up to the house and told us she lived there.
She didn’t want to say who she was, but said the family is working with an attorney and would like to get their side of the story out eventually.