Three former St. Tammany Parish school employees accused of simple battery against a student are now participating in the northshore District Attorney's Office's diversion program and will avoid criminal prosecution.

The DA's Office had charged former paraprofessionals Tiffany K Bourgeois, Angela Rayer and Leslie Cookmeyer with simple battery of a person with infirmities. The misdemeanor charges stem from an incident in January 2023 at Mandeville Middle School involving an 11-year-old student who is blind and has autism. The school is now called Sloan Middle School.

The student's parents accused Bourgeois of kicking the student, claimed Rayer shoved the student and hit him in the face with a walkie talkie and accused Cookmeyer of pushing the student's head into the cafeteria table, accor

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