Students attacked two teachers in Baltimore City?s Northeast Middle School in separate incidents last Monday. School authorities say gangs may have prompted them.
Over the course of the school year, teachers have filed 25 official complaints about assaults, according to the Baltimore Teachers Union. But evidence points to the fact that the problem is much more prevalent than statistics show.
Pat Ferguson, the chair of the BTU?s school safety committee, told The Examiner earlier this week that at least one teacher is assaulted each day in the city?s public school system. So far this school year, 50 teachers have left anonymous messages on a safety tip line, and a teacher resigned from Waverly Elementary/Middle School two weeks ago following two separate assaults by students.
Some teachers told The Examiner that principals and other high ranking administrators discourage teachers from filing reports so that schools would not be categorized as “persistently dangerous.” All six meeting that criteria under federal law in the state are in Baltimore City. The underreporting is bolstered by the fact that Baltimore City Public Schools reported zero instances of bullying last year, as required by state law. That?s right, zero, in a school system with the only persistently dangerous schools in the state. That makes no sense.
If a school is rated as persistently dangerous for three years in a row, parents may opt to move their children to a different one. That means the school will lose funding ? and administrators may lose jobs.
Not reporting violent incidents is a terrible policy. And it asks the question: Who is in charge? Keeping silent means the thugs who harass and sometimes seriously injure teachers dictate school policy.
Is this fair to the students who want to learn or to the teachers who want to teach? How many of the 50 percent of new teachers in the Baltimore City Public School System who leave after three years do so because they fear for their safety?
Those students who attack teachers must be thrown out of the school so that they do not ruin the education of their classmates and push teachers out of the system. The only way that will happen is for each school to accurately report attacks against its teachers. Mandatory outside audits examining school suspensions and reports of violence against teachers would be a good start. But administrators must send a clear message to students that disruptive and/or criminal activity will never be tolerated.
