SuzyLee asked:

Hi, folks. I need a bit of advice. My daughter is 8-years-old and in the 3rd grade. Her school’s gym teacher has always been sort of a rough character, yelling at times and sometimes failing to treat the kids with the respect they deserve. It goes a bit beyond friendly gym teacher roughness.

My daughter came home today and told me that he “dragged” her by the shoulder to a spot that he wanted her to stand in. The nutshell version of the situation is that he asked all of the left-handed students to stand in the blue area of the gym floor. Apparently, there are two blue areas and my daughter went to the wrong one. The teacher grabbed her shoulder, dug his fingers into her collarbone and dragged her to the correct blue area. Her shoe skidded across the floor as he pulled her.

The question is simple: what would you do if this were your daughter? It’s obvious that he’s not the biggest fan of my daughter’s. Any advice is helpful. Thanks!
Getting her out of the class is not an option. There’s only one gym class. I just want to know that I’m not blowing this out of proportion. I really don’t think I am.
Going in today for a meeting with the principal. Thanks for your support, everyone. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Well, the principal took the claim seriously, if perhaps not as seriously as I’d have liked. He’s making me come BACK to the school next week (he said he didn’t have enough time to deal with it today) to meet with him, my daughter, the gym teacher and the school counselor. The principal is a nice guy but I think that he needs to be a litle more aggressive when it comes to these types of situations.