A classroom can be a dangerous place for Baltimore City teachers.
Too often students shout profanities, punch out windows, throw books, overturn desks and threaten teachers. And too often, those threats turn into brutal attacks.
It?s a common complaint that teaching can be an isolated profession, where faculty members are on their own in their classrooms.
But teachers say it?s made worse when students start brawling and threatening them, and not enough help comes from principals and parents to quell the violence.
Teachers mistrust their principals, who, in turn, distrust system administrators at school headquarters on North Avenue.
Both principals and teachers are quick to rattle off the failures of past superintendents to calm chaotic classrooms.
When they hear city schools chief Andres Alonso?s pledge to fire principals who don?t report students who assault teachers, some don?t believe him. Some teachers even wonder whether they should come back next year.
Principals? ?handsare tied?
Jolita Berry, an art teacher at Reginald F. Lewis High School, filed second-degree assault charges against her student attacker after a video of the beating aired nationally.
But most teachers are overwhelmed by the thought of navigating the criminal justice system, city State?s Attorney Patricia Jessamy says.
Maryland law requires victims to file charges on their own if the assault occurred outside a police officer?s view. And, according to Jessamy, some teachers fear retaliation from unruly students, and principals worry about school performance ratings.
Too many teachers don?t report the attacks, and when they do, principals fear losing their jobs if they suspend too many students, says Jimmy Gittings, president of the Public School Administrators and Supervisors Association.
Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, schools that consistently suspend students for violent acts are labeled “persistently dangerous,” a designation that leads to bad press and the dismissal of principals, Gittings says.
About a half dozen city schools are “persistently dangerous,” which means the school ? for three consecutive years ? has had student suspensions 10 days and longer for serious offenses that equal 2.5 percent or more of the total number of students.
Violent offenses include arson, physical attacks, drugs, explosives and firearms.
Parents at these schools have the option of transferring their children to another school.
Baltimore City is the only school district in the state to have schools labeled “persistently dangerous.”
“Our principals? hands are tied in a lot of these situations,” Gittings says. “Principals have been fired for this because it?s a part of their evaluation.”
Distrust lingers
Alonso has repeatedly vowed he will not fire principals for having schools labeled as dangerous.
“Some of the principals I respect the most are heading ?persistently dangerous? schools right now,” he says. “I?m never going to fire a principal because they end up on a ?persistently dangerous? list. I will fire them for not reporting incidents.”
Still, many teachers worry that Alonso?s message isn?t getting through to principals. “This is not a school system where people trust each other,” he says.
Alonso and Mayor Sheila Dixon, a former teacher, recently held a forum to let teachers air their grievances about unsafe working conditions and to talk about solutions.
Alonso says his office would review every alleged assault, dispatch more mental health clinicians to schools and give principals discretion over school budgets, so they can start more violence- and gang-prevention programs.
All teachers, Alonso said, can undergo training in conflict resolution and classroom management, and a committee is drafting a new code of conduct so principals no longer can choose a wide ? and inconsistent ? range of punishments for violent students.
He?s also considering expanding conflict-resolution programs to all schools, a proposal a City Council member also has introduced. Students in grades three through 12 would have to undergo mandatory conflict-resolution training if Councilwoman Agnes Welch?s bill passes.
Since Berry?s highly publicized attack, some teachers keep asking Alonso whether they have the right to defend themselves. As a teacher who worked for a decade with emotionally disturbed students, Alonso says he?s asked that same question of himself many times.
But it?s one he refuses to answer, saying it?s not his job to suggest expectations for a school.
“My job is to make sure teachers never have to defend themselves,” he says.
Teachers feel alone
At the recent school safety forum with Alonso at the system?s professional development center in Northeast Baltimore, several hundred teachers sat in separate rooms with colleagues to brainstorm solutions.
In one room full of middle school teachers, the calls for change came rapidly:
Students and parents should no longer be able to come and go as they please. Cell phone bans should be taken seriously.
Principals need to stop hiding in their offices and undermining a teacher?s authority in front of students. Teachers should get more updates about the reasons behind lockdowns. Principals should worry less about uniform violations and more about students hitting teachers.
Then, the televised image of Alonso flashes to the screen.
And, like everyone in city schools and elsewhere in recent weeks, he talks about the student?s attack on Jolita Berry.
“What kept bothering me ever since I saw that video was: What were the rest of the kids doing?” he says. “What?s so tragic for me is the sense that so many teachers believe they are on their own.”
All the teachers in the room responded in unison.
“We are.”
