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Fourth Grade Fight Club Gets Teachers in Trouble
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 2, 2010
Modified Feb 2, 2010
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By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 2, 2010
Modified Feb 2, 2010
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A fourth grade teacher and a teacher's aide at PS 65 in Ozone Park allegedly turned their classroom into an impromptu fight club on Thursday. Instructor Joseph Gullotta, 29, from Long Island, was simply trying to teach his students how to settle their differences—through brute force on random victims—but apparently that macho approach is frowned upon by the DOE. The incident reportedly started when 10-year-old Tomas Rivera got into an argument with a classmate, and Gullotta suggested that instead of taking out his anger on his adversary, Rivera should wrestle a younger classmate, 9-year-old Justin Stokel. Makes perfect sense.
Gullotta allegedly told one student to shut the classroom door, and then instructed everyone to stand back to give the combatants room to wrestle. During the battle, Rivera head-butted Stokel, resulting in a laceration and bleeding to Stokel’s lower lip and swelling and bruising to the top and back of Rivera’s head. "Everybody in my class was laughing," Jonathan Michael, a fourth-grader, tells the Daily News. "They were fighting over some pencils, and they were bleeding."
43-year-old teacher's aide Abraham Fox was in the classroom the entire time and did nothing to stop the fight, according to the Queens DA's press release [pdf]. But after the combat, Fox warned Gullotta that Stokel might need stitches, yet both men barred the boys from going to the nurse for almost two hours. Finally, Gullotta sent Stokel to the nurse with a cover story: someone had dropped a pencil and Rivera’s head accidentally collided with his (Stokel’s) mouth when they both bent down to pick up the pencil.
Rivera was also called to the nurse's office, and kept to the story. But the first rule of fight club was later violated when the parent of one of the students involved in the incident overheard them talking about it. Gullotta and Fox are charged with two counts each of "acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17" and could face up to a year in jail if convicted. Fox was suspended without pay, while Gullotta—here's the kicker—has been sent to the infamous Rubber Room, where he'll continue to collect a paycheck to do nothing, or perhaps become a millionaire with a little side business!
Tagged
fight club
ozone park
PS 65
queens
school
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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