DANIA BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A physical altercation at a school in Dania Beach, involving an assistant principal and a 13-year-old student, is at the center of an investigation by school district officials, and this is not the first time the administrator has been accused of troubling treatment.
Cellphone video captured the altercation in the cafeteria at Olsen Middle School, Wednesday afternoon.
“It happened so fast, but all I know is that he grabbed me, then pushed me to the podium,” said the student.
The student who was involved in the fight and her father spoke with 7News about the incident hours later.
“I’m scared. I’m traumatized,” she said.
The student in the video told 7News she’s now afraid to go back to class. Her father is furious.
“I don’t understand why this guy still has a job,” said the parent.
The father identified Charles Zimmerman, the assistant principal of Olsen Middle School, in the video.
The recording showed Zimmerman as he grabbed the 13-year-old student and pushed her into a metal podium. At that point, she fell on the floor of the cafeteria.
“I don’t want to go back to that school. I don’t want to see Mr. Zimmerman,” said the student.
The concerned parent, who doesn’t want to be identified, nor his family, said no one had called him. He said a friend of the 13-year-old girl called him, sent him video of the fight and explained what had occurred.
“I had to come to the school myself and say, ‘Hey, surprise, I’m here. Somebody beat my daughter up. What’s going on?'” said the parent. “The school definitely neglected her and neglected me.”
When he arrived at the school, Lorenzo said, he was told by the assistant principal that nothing had happened, although there was an incident being investigated.
“I am baffled, upset and hurt,” said the parent. “My daughter is confused and doesn’t know why this happened. They failed me and my daughter.”
The student said it all started as an argument between a group of students.
“Mr. Zimmerman took it upon himself to grab me with extra force and slam me against the metal podium,” she said. “I hit the back of my head, and it still hurts.”
“First of all, looking at the video, look at all the aggression towards the student, a girl, like — I don’t even understand how he still has a job,” said the parent.
It remains unclear what prompted Zimmerman to grab the student.
A spokesperson for Broward County Public Schools released a statement that reads, “A staff member, who attempted to de-escalate a physical confrontation between two students in the cafeteria today, Wednesday, March 9, is being investigated. The employee is being reassigned away from the school and students to an administrative location pending the outcome of this investigation.”
This is not the first time Zimmerman has been under investigation. Back in 2019, then superintendent Robert Runcie had recommended Zimmerman be fired for a similar situation at a different school.
Video showed him turning a female student’s chair upside down and wrestling her at William Dandy Middle School in Fort Lauderdale.
The student ended up in the hospital.
The superintendent recommended that Zimmerman be fired. Instead, he was suspended for 15 days.
“I’m hoping that he will not have a job nowhere in Dade County or Broward,” said the father of the student in Wednesday’s incident.
Family members who picked up their children when school was dismissed on Thursday echoed the father’s feelings.
“When you do something once, you’re going to do it again,” said Jada Gonzalez, the sister of an Olsen Middle student. “There’s no changing. No one really changes what it is, so he should have been fired the first time. If he put his hands on a kid, I think every other kid in the school felt unsafe.”
“Obviously, you’ve got to take action the first time. If not, it’s going to keep happening,” said parent Nancy Vinuela.
The father of the girl from this latest incident hopes that Zimmerman won’t be working here for much longer.
“I would like to see the school board actually step up and do something about it this time,” said the parent.
Broward County Schools said Zimmerman has been reassigned to another location, where there is no student contact, pending the results of the investigation.
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