MESQUITE, Texas — A now-fired substitute teacher at a North Texas school district has been arrested after she allegedly encouraged students to fight inside a classroom at a middle school.
Police in Mesquite said Natally Garcia, 24, was arrested on Monday and faces four counts of endangering a child for the incident at Kimbrough Middle School.
Garcia had been employed at the Mesquite Independent School District since March 6, according to the district. The district said the incident happened on Wednesday, April 12, 2023.
In a statement, Mesquite ISD said Garcia "encouraged students to fight each other during class, outlined rules for the students to follow and even instructed a student to monitor the classroom door while the fights took place."
A mother of a student inside the classroom at the time told WFAA that her 13-year-old daughter recorded the incident.
The video showed Garcia telling students not to record the fights and to guard the door. In the video, students could be seen throwing punches at each other.
"Unacceptable. It's disgusting," mother Beatriz Martinez said of the video. "My anger, my rage was so much I literally felt like I made myself sick. I was seeing blurry."
The district said it fired Garcia and that she is not eligible to for rehire in any capacity.
Mesquite police said they were forwarded video of the incident and that the investigation led to Garcia's arrest on Monday.
"Investigators determined that Garcia engaged in conduct that placed four students in danger of bodily injury," police said in a statement.