Teacher investigated for assaulting student, 12

SILVER SPRINGS - A Lyon County high school teacher is being investigated for allegedly grabbing a student by the shirt collar and throwing him out of a classroom.

District Attorney Leon Aberasturi confirmed Monday he is reviewing a Sheriff's Department report alleging Dick Mesna, a Silver Stage High School teacher, committed misdemeanor simple battery in the March 31 altercation with a 12-year-old Silver Stage Middle School student.

Dylan Coates, a seventh-grader, was serving his third day of in-school detention for a verbal fight on the school bus in Mesna's disciplinary class when he fell asleep, said Dylan's mother, Stacie Filler, a Nevada Appeal accounting department employee. In-school suspensions for students at Silver Stage middle and high schools are served in the high-school classroom.

"The teacher took the back of Dylan's chair and pushed it into the desk to wake him up and his stomach and chest area slammed against the desk. That's when Dylan took his binder and tried to swing at the teacher and called him a name," she said.

Filler said Mesna then allegedly grabbed the 76-pound boy by the back collar of his T-shirt and his arm.

"He picked him up, slammed him against the wall, slammed him against the door and threw him outside the classroom," she said.

Photographs Filler took two days later show bruising from the pressure of the fabric around the front of the boy's neck. She claims bruising on the boy's left arm, also evident in a photograph, came from the teacher's finger. What can't be seen in the photos is bruising on his back from hitting the wall and a bruise on his abdomen from when Mesna allegedly pushed him into the desk to wake him.

"I don't agree with Dylan's words or his actions, but I don't agree with the teacher choking and slamming a child into walls and doors," she said.

"I want (Mesna) to be charged and prevented from doing that to someone else. At this point it's not only Dylan I'm looking out for, I have two other children that have to go through the (school) system."

Silver Stage High School Principal Dave Rigaldo said Mesna is still teaching, and the school is conducting its own investigation into the allegations.

"That's where we are right now," he said.

Aberasturi said he'll make a decision on whether to pursue the charges by April 15.

Neither Lyon County Superintendent Nat Lommori nor Mesna returned phone calls Monday.

Contact F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.