Student Allegedly Spanked: N.J. Revokes Newark Teacher's Licenses

The N.J. Department of Education has revoked the license of a Newark teacher accused of spanking a pre-kindergarten student in front of a classroom of his peers.

According to state documents, the alleged spanking took place in 2014 at the Speedway Avenue School in Newark, when teacher Richard Barnes-Bey reportedly “struck a four-year-old pre-kindergarten [boy] twice on the buttocks with an open hand in the presence of a classroom of students.”

After allegedly hearing a “loud yelling” coming from a classroom, Assistant Superintendent Mitchell Center stated that he heard someone say “Come to school like a man, got to get a beating like a man.”

When Center opened the classroom door, he allegedly saw Barnes-Bey pulling the boy by the arm out of his chair. Center said that he saw Barnes-Bey hit the boy hard on his buttocks twice.

According to Center, he immediately removed the crying boy from the classroom and called a security guard, who took the child to the school nurse.

Barnes-Bey did not have his aide in the classroom that day, Center stated.

During a tenure charge hearing in April 2014, an arbitrator agreed that Barnes-Bey had struck the boy on the buttocks, which was “not justified under any of the exceptions to the ban on corporal punishment pursuant to N.J.S.A. 18A:6-1.”

The arbitrator then recommended that the district dismiss Barnes-Bey for “conduct unbecoming a teaching staff member.”

The State Board of Examiners officially revoked his teaching licenses on Sept. 17.

Barnes-Bey had held a Teacher of Preschool Through Grade 3 Certificate of Eligibility, issued in December of 2001, and a Teacher of Preschool Through Grade 3 certificate, issued in November of 2005.

A PRIOR ‘UNBLEMISHED’ RECORD

In an initial decision, a judge with the NJ Office of Administrative Law stated that Barnes-Bey had participated in several volunteer programs for children and “had never been accused of inappropriately touching a child in any school or extra-curricular setting.”

In addition, the judge complimented Barnes-Bey for his “prior unblemished record, his efforts to better educate himself professionally, his contributions to the community beyond the school setting, and his compassion for his profession and his students.”

However, the judge also ruled that Barnes-Bey “impermissibly used excessive and unnecessary force to discipline a student of a tender age.”

The fact that the discipline occurred in front of other young and impressionable students also acted as an aggravating factor, the judge stated.

Bey was honored as a “Community Connection Champion” by the Newark Youth Connection Council in 2009.