Florida parents are calling for the arrest of a local pastor who allegedly whipped their fourth-graders with a belt at a private religious school.
The furious moms and dads claim man-of-the-cloth Terence Gray entered the classroom where their 9- and 10-year-olds were at St. Mark’s AME Church’s Alpha Learning Academy in Orlando on Thursday afternoon demanding to know which students were misbehaving.
Gray allegedly demanded that the children stand up and admit to bad behavior. It’s unclear if any did, but the students’ teacher eventually outed the reputed misbehaving pupils and forced them to stand up, according to WFTV.
The pastor is accused of then taking off his belt and giving three lashes each to more than a dozen students — leaving some with bruises on their legs.
“He said he was going to whoop us with a belt because we were being bad,” student Shane Walker told WFTV.
The boy’s mother, Janesha Martin, said she was “very emotional” when she heard what happened.
“I don’t send my child to school to be abused by anyone,” she said, adding, “The pastor should have been arrested last night!”
When confronted about the beating, Gray said the students volunteered to be whipped, Martin claimed.
“Pastor Gray said that the children volunteered, which is a lie,” she said. “My child would never volunteer to… disciplinary action of that sort.”
Meanwhile, another mother, Kinshasa Felix, said she pulled her daughter out of the school after the child was beaten for drawing pictures of children and passing them around to students.
“What makes a man want to whip a kid like that?” she asked.
The mom said that when she told school administrators she would be removing her child, they gave her a form to sign — which indicated the reasons for the girl’s withdrawal were “academic.”
Felix insisted on writing “child abuse” in its place.
The angered mothers said the school’s handbook does not list whipping as a form of acceptable punishment, and even though Gray is the senior pastor of the church that operates the school, he is not supposed to be involved in its day-to-day operations.
The principal of the Alpha Learning Academy did not immediately respond to a Post request for comment Monday. A separate email sent to the e-address listed for Gray on the church’s website bounced back.
Gray has been a senior pastor at St. Mark’s AME Church since 2004, according to his LinkedIn.
His profile says, “Empowering people to become what God intended is my greatest joy. Freeing them to leave the Egypts of their lives is most important.”
Gray ran for Congress in 2021, touting his “positive” work in the community. He lost the race.
“His work impacting positive change has been recognized with awards from the AME Church, the NAACP and the city of Macon, [Georgia],” his campaign website said.
Orlando police are now investigating the alleged beatings, saying they were called soon after the students reported the lashings.
None of the children were seriously injured, and no paramedics were called to the scene, according to WESH.