Teacher calls suspension ‘appropriate’ after students ripped out his braids

A Maryland teacher who was investigated after sharing a viral video of students taking out his braided hairstyle announced in a social media update that he was ultimately suspended for five days.

As previously reported, Marquise White of the Maya Angelou French Immersion School in Hillcrest Heights, Maryland, shared a TikTok livestream on May 5 in which some students removed his braids.

The video led to an investigation, during which a Prince George’s County School District spokesperson told PEOPLE that White had been “removed from the classroom.”

White has since announced his suspension in a 7-minute TikTok post on July 6, with CBS affiliate WUSA reporting that he believes it is a “appropriate” punishment.

“Ultimately, I violated a policy and I take responsibility for that,” White said in an interview with the local news station.

In his July 6 TikTok clip to his over 780,000 followers, White said, “I made a mistake… Even though I have parental consent for their students to appear in my social media videos, the district is still opposed to featuring students on social media, which is understandable.”

“Because of that, I’m being suspended for five days without pay. But I’m not fired. I was never fired. The district reached out and said he was transferred, I was just transferred to my house. They had to investigate the things people were saying about me,” White said, adding that some people on social media had made “baseless” claims about him in response to the clip.

The Prince George’s County School District told PEOPLE in a statement on Thursday, July 11, that “the investigation is complete and the teacher remains an employee of PGCPS (Prince George’s County Public Schools).”

The district added to WUSA that it could not comment on confidential personnel matters.

White did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for further comment on Thursday.

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While White said in his new video that he was initially “really bothered” by how long it took for the decision to be made, he thanked the district for “taking the time and making sure I wasn’t a real nutcase” before he was “allowed back into the classroom.”

“People have insulted me with all sorts of things. They have made baseless allegations and accusations against me,” he said. “… After a long, exhaustive and arduous investigation, they have found nothing. I repeat: they have never found anything.”

As previously mentioned, White’s video prompted viewers to both defend and criticize his behavior as a teacher. The district’s code of conduct states that teachers may not record students’ faces and voices unless they are teaching a performing arts or professional technology education course, and that teachers “must respect students’ personal boundaries by maintaining appropriate distance and exhibiting appropriate behavior.”

White also said in his TikTok update that his “entire school community,” including parents, students, staff and administration, supports him during the investigation.

“With that said, I want to thank everyone and express my sincere gratitude to those who did not get away with their assumptions or generalizations or make unsubstantiated claims based on something they saw on the internet,” White said.

“I’ll be back in school in August doing what I do best,” White said at the end of his video. “Making learning fun and impacting the lives of countless students.”