Racially bullied student says teacher fired for sticking up for him

Malachi Gillis, 9, says he was bullied on a regular basis from the day he started classes at Four Peaks Elementary school in Fountain Hills. He says a usual group of students would call him racial slurs no person his age should know or say.

"'You belong to a zoo,' 'stupid head,' 'monkey,' 'crackhead,'" are just some of the things Malachi said he was called.

<Snip>

Malachi moved to Pam Aister's classroom, but the bullies never relented and, Malachi said, surrounded him on the playground one day. Jennifer Gillis thinks they were going to physically attack her son.

"They were all around me and they started throwing rocks," he said.

Aister stepped in. It's unclear the words she used, but school administrators considered them threatening toward the students who were allegedly bullying Malachi. Aister was fired.

Monday, the Fountain Hills Unified School District upheld that decision.

More