SC school employee arrested after allegedly pushing 8-year-old special needs student
A Columbia charter school employee is accused of physically assaulting an 8-year-old special needs student on campus last month, police said.
Kelly Grady, a special education paraprofessional at Clear Dot Charter School, was arrested Saturday and charged with cruelty to children, a misdemeanor, Columbia Police Department spokeswoman Jennifer Timmons said.
Grady, 54, is accused of pushing the student against a wall and holding him there to restrict his movement, according to a police report.
The report does not include any other information about the Dec. 1 incident.
The student’s mother told The State she’d seen footage of the incident that showed Grady “jack” her son up by the arm and ram him into a wall.
“I saw fear in his eyes,” said the mother, whose name is being withheld to protect her son’s identity. “He saw the teacher rushing to him, and he threw his hands up in defense.”
The alleged assault occurred while the third-grader was fighting with another student during physical education class, the mother said.
The boy, who struggles with impulsivity and has an Individualized education program, or IEP, has suffered mentally since the incident, his mother said.
“He’s obsessively talking about if teachers at the school are mad at him or if he’s going to be picked on or bullied,” she said.
Lindsey Ott, Clear Dot’s chief executive officer, said Grady “was no longer employed” by the school, but otherwise declined comment on the employee’s arrest and the school’s response to it.
“It is our standard practice not to comment on the specifics of personnel matters out of respect for individual privacy,” she said in an emailed statement.
The incident marks at least the third time in the past two years that someone working at the pre-K-12 charter school has been arrested for their alleged conduct involving a student.
In October 2024, Clear Dot staff member Keoshia “Kiki” Gaines was charged with cruelty to children after she allegedly assaulted a fourth-grade student, records show.
Gaines, who was 35 at the time of her arrest, was captured on video “aggressively and forcefully pulling and shoving a student” in the middle of the playground, according to a police report. Her criminal case is pending.
Prior to that, former Clear Dot teacher Najla Clayton was charged with two counts of unlawful conduct toward a child and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The charges, filed in April 2024, stemmed from an incident at Clayton’s home in which she allegedly provided marijuana and tobacco to a 16-year-old student in the presence of two young children, ages 6 and 11.
Clayton, who worked for Clear Dot at the time, was additionally accused of offering her 11-year-old daughter the marijuana while allowing her to smoke a tobacco product, police said.
While awaiting trial on those charges, the former teacher was arrested again in June 2025 and accused of having sex with a student, court records show.
Columbia police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the circumstances of Clayton’s pending sexual battery charge.
This story was originally published January 14, 2026 at 8:52 AM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the employment status of a former Clear Dot Charter School teacher. Najla Clayton taught at the charter school, but was employed by a staffing agency.