The Baltimore teacher whose fight with a student last April made national headlines called the student a bitch and told her she was from the ghetto, a witness testified Monday.
The assault case against the student began Monday in Baltimore City Juvenile Court, and while Jolita Berry, who taught art at Reginald F. Lewis High School, said the fight left her with a swollen left side of her face, contusions in her eyes and more than $1,000 in medical bills, the student’s attorneys argued that the teenager was defending herself against Berry.
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“This was a matter where the teacher actually initiated the altercation,” Susan Green, an attorney for the student, said in her opening argument.
Green said Berry hit the student first. She also said Berry called the student “ghetto and asked if she was from the projects,” a description that another student who was in the room echoed in testimony.
Berry, however, disputed that account.
“I felt violated. I feared for my life,” she said. “You never know in that type of situation what she’s going to do. I thought she was going to pick something up and try to put me in a coma.”
The student, whose name The Examiner is withholding because she is a minor, turned up a radio that Berry kept at a low volume on the rap station 92Q Jams, and the two got into an argument because Berry did not allow students to touch the radio.
The student then approached Berry at the front of the room and punched her, the teacher testified.
“I felt like she hit me with everything she could,” Berry said. “I fell back.”
The fight was recorded on a cell phone by another student and posted on YouTube. The grainy images of a student swinging her fists while on top of a teacher caused a national uproar and pushed State Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick and U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings to convene a summit on school violence, and prompted city schools chief Andres Alonso to call on hundreds of volunteers to improve schools.
Berry, who is black, claimed she never cussed in class or admonished students. She said she would sometimes discuss stereotypes with students by telling them to “stop acting ghetto” and teaching that “there’s a time to be loud and carry on, and there’s a time not to be that way.”
Berry, 31, transferred to Reginald F. Lewis from Harlem Park Elementary a few months before the fight. She was on a personal improvement program and had a teaching mentor to try to improve her classroom management and teaching skills.
The teacher said most of the injuries she sustained in the fight were mental. She said she still sees a psychiatrist, and she can’t go to her favorite shopping destination in Towson because so many high school-age kids frequent the area.
