WOODVILLE – Several students sustained burns to their hands during an “exercise program promoted on social media,” according to Woodville ISD, and many in the community are wanting answers.
“It’s abuse, it’s something, and I’m not sure, but we send our kids to school and hope they come back. It goes through everyone’s mind every day,” said John Bednarik, who is one of the parents of one of the students injured during the exercise.
Bednarik’s son was one of the sixth-grade pre-athletics class students at Woodville Middle School who was allegedly engaging in a TikTok-inspired bear crawl exercise on the track, a challenge given by a coach, who allegedly told the students they could do the bear crawl or a typical workout routine. The incident occurred on Monday.
Bednarik said he saw that his son’s hands were blistered “to the point where the nurse had put bandage material on his hands.”
“I just wasn’t aware until my son told me exactly what had happened,” he said.
Bednarik said his wife was informed by school personnel that his son had injured himself during pre-athletics, but that the only details given were that his hands had been injured.
Other students had reportedly been treated at emergency rooms for second-degree burns, while others reportedly had sustained first-degree burns and were able to be treated with antibiotic cream and bandages.
Reportedly, some parents are pursuing filing police reports, and Woodville Police Department is investigating.
According to Woodville Chief of Police Mike McCulley, police are gathering facts, assessing the temperature of the track from the day of the incident and taking statements, and expect to meet with District Attorney Lucas Babin this week to see whether or not criminal charges are filed.
The school district issued a statement about the incident from Superintendent Lisa Meysembourg.
“We are equally as concerned with the reports as the community and are taking the matter seriously, as our students’ well-being and safety is a top priority,” the statement read.
Meysembourg and Woodville Middle School principal Andrew Ireland have launched a full internal review and are cooperating with Woodville PD.
“While federal privacy laws (FERPA) limit what we can share, we want to be clear: the employee actions described by the media do not reflect the values or expectations of Woodville ISD. The district is addressing all personnel matters in line with district policy, and can confirm the staff member involved has been removed from campus and will not be returning to the district,” Meysembourg said in the statement.
Note: No charges have been filed at present, so the name of the former WISD staff member is not being used in this report.
