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A state appeals court panel has overturned the harassment conviction and $300 fine for a veteran teacher aide who was accused of hitting an 8-year-old special needs student.
There is simply no evidence Janet Marie Cooper meant to strike the pupil at a Berks County elementary school, Senior Judge James J. Fitzgerald III concluded in the Superior Court opinion issued this week.
Cooper claimed she hit the child accidentally after he smacked her in the face and knocked her off-balance as he came down a sliding board. Despite her assertion, a district judge convicted her of summary harassment and the county court upheld the conviction.
The incident that prompted Reading police to charge Cooper occurred in October 2014 at Tyson-Schoener Elementary School in Reading School District. Cooper, a 19-year employee of the district, was supervising eight special needs students on the playground.
According to Fitzgerald's opinion, Cooper stopped the children from going down a sliding board head-first and told them to ride it in a sitting position. One student came down the slide sitting and slapped Cooper in the face, knocking off her glasses. Cooper's hand made contact with the student's face and he yelled, "Ow, my ear!" Fitzgerald wrote.
"The entire incident took 5 to 10 seconds," the judge noted.
During the hearing before the district judge, another aide testified that she saw Cooper reach over to hit the child back after he struck her. Yet, Fitzgerald wrote, the other aide also said she didn't actually see the moment of contact.
Fitzgerald cited Cooper's testimony at the same hearing. When the child hit her in the left eye, "I flew back and then I flew forward and the side of my face hit the side of the slide...but my hands connected with him as he went down the sliding board," she said.
Fitzgerald wrote that his court is "constrained to agree" with Cooper's argument that the evidence didn't prove she had the intent to "annoy, harass or alarm" the pupil that would justify her conviction.