Texas teacher charged after slapping student

A teacher at a Texas high school has been arrested and charged with assault after her alleged assault on a student was caught on video.

Mary Hastings is a 63-year-old geometry teacher at Ozen High School in Beaumont, Texas, a city of about 120,000 about 90 miles east of Houston. On Friday during her fourth period math class, she was filmed allegedly attacking a student who reportedly asked about a grade.

What preceded the alleged attack was not clear.

“Because you’re stopping him from graduating, you idiot ass!” Hastings said in a video, pushing papers off the student’s desk and slapping him five times with an open palm. “Why you did that,” the student asked her. Hastings repeated his words, mocking him.

After the widely shared video was posted to Twitter on April 8, Hastings was arrested that day and charged with one count of assault, 12 News reported. She was released on $2,500 bond.

Atyra Deroune, a 10th grader at Ozen who witnessed the alleged attack, told 12 News that it was out-of-character.

“She was a really cool teacher,” Deroune said. “It was just that particular day.”

Other students who talked to KHOU, but that the TV station did not name, offered the same impression.

“I just didn’t think that Miss Hastings would do something like that to one of her students,” one said.

“She is a caring teacher,” another said. “She cares for her students. But she ... students do give her a hard time sometimes.”

Deroune said the alleged attack was as vicious as it appeared in the video.

“He asked Miss Hastings for the grade or whatever, and she went AWOL,” Deroune said. “She picked up a bucket of papers, threw it at him.”

But Deroune said such behavior was unexpected. Hastings was not known as a stern character.

“She was a cool teacher — she wasn’t always mad,” Deroune said. “But when she was ready to teach us, for us to learn, she got serious. But she was always a laid-back teacher, cool with the kids.”

Hastings declined comment to 12 News and KHOU.