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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nIn 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":55344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","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":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDRcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtODktNC53ZWJwP2ZpdD0yOTclMkMzOTgmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJTdWJzdGl0dXRlIHRlYWNoZXIgY2hhcmdlZCB3aXRoIGNoaWxkIG5lZ2xlY3QgYWZ0ZXIgY2xhc3Nyb29tIGZpZ2h0IGF0IExha2VsYW5kIG1pZGRsZSBzY2hvb2wiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.MXyji6cF7sQlUNri5uozoSqeaUpGzeMw_K4jHylAI1kMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":55344,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-89-4.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[11358],"class_list":["post-55343","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-at-lakeland-middle-school"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55343","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=55343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55345,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55343\/revisions\/55345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}