A Montgomery County elementary school teacher on trial for allegedly choking her students testified Thursday that she sometimes intervened to break up fights, but never intentionally harmed the children.
Susan L. Burke, 36, was testifying at her trial on assault charges in Montgomery County Circuit Court.
On the witness stand, Burke said she would grab one of her first-grade students by the shoulders to pull the child away from a physical altercation with another student, but didn’t use choking as a means of discipline.
Several Greencastle Elementary School students who testified earlier this week said Burke grabbed their necks and choked them as punishment.
In three hours of testimony Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, Burke described how she disciplined students in class.
She usually began with verbal warnings, but sometimes had to physically intervene, Burke said. Burke said she never choked a child.
She described pulling a boy by the shoulders to drag him out of a fight with another boy about professional football teams.
Burke said another boy who testified this week “got in trouble frequently” and was the class clown, often falling out of his chair “accidentally-on-purpose.” Burke said she would help pull him back into his seat. When that happened, she said, the boy would sometimes apologize and sometimes complain that she was hurting him.
Burke also testified that she would place her hands on a young girl’s shoulders to redirect the child back to her desk when the girl wandered around the classroom.
