{"id":54515,"date":"2025-03-14T07:06:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T11:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=54515"},"modified":"2025-03-14T07:06:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T11:06:46","slug":"substitute-teacher-charged-with-child-neglect-after-classroom-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/03\/14\/substitute-teacher-charged-with-child-neglect-after-classroom-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Substitute teacher charged with child neglect after classroom fight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kelan Durn has been charged with child neglect, according to an arrest affidavit from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A substitute teacher at Kathleen Middle School has been charged with child neglect after he allegedly allowed students to fight during class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an arrest affidavit from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, deputies said 24-year-old Kelan Durn was assigned to a teacher’s class for the day on March 7. A video taken on that day allegedly shows Durn making no attempts to intervene as students fought in the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deputies said the video also shows Durn sitting in the back of the room while students fought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Mr. Durn advised them to stop fighting, but he was laughing when he said it and made no attempt to stop them,” deputies shared in the affidavit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When questioned, Durn reportedly told investigators that he didn’t intervene “in fear of touching the students.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When asked why he did not call for administration for assistance, he shrugged his shoulders,” deputies added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Durn was arrested on March 8 and ultimately charged with neglect of a child without great bodily harm. In a statement, Polk County Public Schools said Durn will no longer be involved with the district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is unacceptable behavior for any educator working in our schools,” the school district stated. “Just to clarify, (Durn) was not a PCPS employee. He works for Kelly Education, a company that provides substitutes to school districts, including PCPS. We have notified Kelly Education that he is no longer allowed to serve within our schools.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kelan Durn has been charged with child neglect, according to an arrest affidavit from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. A substitute teacher at Kathleen Middle School has been charged with… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDNcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtODEtNy1wbmcud2VicD9maXQ9Mjk5JTJDNDExJnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiU3Vic3RpdHV0ZSB0ZWFjaGVyIGNoYXJnZWQgd2l0aCBjaGlsZCBuZWdsZWN0IGFmdGVyIGNsYXNzcm9vbSBmaWdodCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.7QvCUf3jB-5Fv0-xldRgcuIUf8J3pOJjRrRQjKVJQ3cMQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[11072],"class_list":["post-54515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-substitute-teacher-charged-with-child-neglect-after-classroom-fight"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54517,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54515\/revisions\/54517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}