Santa Monica High School wrestling coach and science teacher Mark Black is seeing an outpouring of community support after a (alleged) drug dealing student picked a fight with Black, and lost.
Coach Black pinned the student to the ground while help arrived.
The incident was caught on cell phone video:
The We Support Coach Black of Samohi Facebook Page has over 10,500 “Likes” so far — come on, we can do better than that — go “Like” the page and spread the link.
A change.org petition for Coach Black’s reinstatement has over 4000 signatures.
The school official who criticized Coach Black has apologized, via L.A. Times:
Santa Monica’s school superintendent has apologized for comments she made after placing a popular science teacher on leave for getting into a physical altercation with a student.
In a statement sent to the “community” over the weekend, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Superintendent Sandra Lyon acknowledged that her remarks about the teacher and wrestling coach have “caused great anger.”“There is concern that my statement reflected a pre-judgment of the teacher’s conduct prior to completion of an investigation,” she said. “There is also concern about my failure to address the conduct of one or more students who were involved in the incident. In retrospect, I understand how my statement has created these concerns. I apologize …”
Hat Tip to commenter LukeHandCool, who grew up on the means streets of Santa Monica, and provided this commentary:
Meanwhile, at my alma mater, Santa Monica High School, last week a student was openly selling drugs in class when the science teacher confronted him and asked him to turn over what he had. The student refused and attacked the teacher.The teacher, Mark Black, is also known as Coach Black and coaches the wrestling team. He subdued the student without throwing a punch and told kids to summon security.So what happened? A superintendent suspended Mr. Black and reached out to the delinquent’s family. A world upside down.
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