Something just doesn’t add up in this report today, coming out of Athens, Georgia, home of the University of Georgia. Seems a university math professor was arrested during an IEP meeting last week for making threats against the school personnel in the meeting. Hmmm…not having a hard time imagining what would push a parent to such an outburst.

Now the paper reports that this professor had previously been investigated for child abuse. Hmmm…again. A quick read of the article works up immediately concern for the 17-year-old’s safety, and empathy for the school officials for having to deal with such a madman. The dad was still in jail as of last night.

But could there be more to the story? Having been kicked around by a school system in Georgia for coming on two years now, I have to say that looking closely at the news report, here’s what I see:

1. a dad who sat through a lengthy IEP meeting that in the principal’s words “kinda escalated to this”. The article says the whole meeting’s on tape. Probably lots of interesting things in there. Just what is the issue he escalated about?
2. apparently a DFCS caseworker filed an abuse complaint that opened an investigation of this father in October 2006, but the police spokesperson said there was no evidence of abuse “at all”.

This is purely conjecture here, but could it be that school personnel were the ones to get DFCS involved in the first place. And could it have been a retaliatory move. Read here.

Don’t get me wrong. If this dad (no matter whether he’s a highly educated math professor or a high school drop out) is abusing his son, I hope all the law enforcement in the state of Georgia swoops down on him and gives him the strongest of punishments possible. But, something’s fishy for sure.

How likely is it that a father who is abusing his child will also be the one to attend a lengthy IEP meeting and obviously fight for something he thought his son needed to the point of then threatening some of the team members? Wouldn’t it be more likely that he’s an advocate for his son and he’s rocking the boat?

I hope, regardless of what actually happened, we get to hear his side of the story. The only way to stop school districts from retaliating against parents (and students) is to make the situation known.