Diamond G. Coleman, one of the top teachers at Roy Shelling Elementary, was arrested this week in a scenario she never dreamed was possible. As a child, she dreamed of being a teacher. She never thought that dream could land her behind bars and facing a judge.
Coleman found two students in another teacher’s unattended class locked in a violent altercation. She sent for help, and followed school board policy and did not physically intervene.
That decision that has now left her career in ruins, her reputation in question, and her freedom at the mercy of a criminal court.
The Coleman case is more than a local scandal; it is a chilling indictment of the impossible position in which we place our educators. We ask them to be mentors, scholars, and surrogate parents, yet when the schoolhouse doors turn into a battlefield, we leave them in a legal “no-man’s-land” where any choice they make could lead to termination, jail, or a lifelong lawsuit.
Coleman followed policy, but often policy doesn’t look good on video and can feel like abandonment when her support group shields itself behind it, even if it means throwing her under the bus of public opinion.
Superintendent Sam Moore, III was contacted and he followed policy. When asked what a teacher should do if there is a student fight, he responded with a two-word text: “Reasonable Supervision.” That’s it.
Teachers at her school were told to keep quiet, say nothing; follow policy. No one could speak to Coleman’s defense. Everyone is ordered to follow policy.
The Liability Trap
The public outcry over the video of Coleman standing with her arms folded—allegedly saying “let them fight”—is visceral. To a parent, it looks like indifference. But to a teacher, those folded arms represent the only shield they have against a system that often fails to protect its own. If she had touched a child on video at least one parent would sue her for “Putting your hands on my child.”
She followed policy which says do not interfere, keep it from escalating if possible but wait for help to come. Shelling school has no resource officer, so whatever help that would have come would have had to follow policy, too.
Louisiana law (R.S. 17:416.11) explicitly states that teachers are not required to physically intervene in student batteries. Why? Because teachers are not police officers. They do not wear Kevlar; they do not carry handcuffs. If a teacher “jumps in” and is punched, the path to recovery is often a bureaucratic nightmare. While Worker’s Compensation and “Assault Pay” exist on paper, many districts’ in-service programs emphasize that the Board is not liable if a teacher exceeds their “supervisory role” and touches students engaged in physical assaults.
Coleman followed the “hands-off” safety rule to the letter. She sent for help—help that never arrived because the classroom where the fight began had been left unsupervised by the district. Yet, because of her words and her posture, she was arrested for “Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor.”
A Double Standard
If a teacher intervenes and a student is injured, they face “excessive force” lawsuits. If they stand back, they face “neglect of duty” charges. If they speak too harshly to keep a crowd back—as Coleman allegedly did with her “double dog dare”—they are branded as unprofessional.
We must ask ourselves: what do we actually expect? We have created a culture where the day’s top educator can be the evening’s newest inmate because she chose to follow a safety policy over a suicide mission.
The Cost of Indecision
The Monroe City School Board and local law enforcement are now sending a terrifying message to every teacher in the parish: Even if you follow our training, we will not stand behind you if the video looks bad.
If you get in trouble following policy, don’t look for the district to help you. You are all alone.
If students are left unsupervised or teachers “call for help” but there is no trained resource officer to help why is Diamond Coleman facing contributing to delinquency charges?
Diamond Coleman may have to answer for her words in court, but the system must answer for a culture that demands heroism from teachers while offering them nothing but a pair of handcuffs in return.
No one is answering the question: In today’s violent times, why wasn’t there a school resource officer on duty at the school? – That’s a school board issue?
When the district fails to provide the trained responder, it leaves teachers who follow policy vulnerable to career ending situations.
If we continue to prosecute teachers for surviving the impossible situations we put them in, we shouldn’t be surprised when the “Teachers of the Month” decide the classroom is no longer a safe place to be.
I tried to de-escalate a verbal altercation that led to a physical one in the hallway outside of my classroom. In my attempts to redirect one of the students into my classroom while having my body towards one student and my back towards the other, one student was trying to go around me and hit the other student, and ended up punching me in the head 4x. I suffered a concussion and was out of work for 2 months. As hard as that was, I can’t imagine being arrested. The fact that teachers even have to choose “which is worse?” between a concussion and an arrest speaks volumes to the safety, or lack of in our profession.