Re: Advice - struck in the head by a student

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I am new to this board. Never been here before. I had a similar
experience a few years back. This is what I did...

I was supervising my own classroom and the hallway just outside, as
I was assigned to do, early one morning. We permitted our students
to go to their lockers in staggered groups, bottom lockers, then
top. It was our standard procedure and nothing new. As I stood in
the doorway of my classroom, one of my students, a 15 year old,
about 6 foot three, decided he wanted to go to his locker right
then and did not want to wait. When I would not move from the
doorway and calmly asked him to sti down, the boy shoved me out of
the way. I'm fairly big and that wasn't an easy thing to do. I
immediately summoned our administration, explaining that I had been
assaulted by a student. Our resource police officer arrived about
5 minutes later and proceeded to take the side of the student,
saying that I "impeded" him by requiring him to remain in the
classroom. A little background note here. This was an inner city
school and the admin frequently sided with the minority students
because they came from such a "rough" neighborhood. Had the student
been caucasian.... Back to my anecdote.

I pulled out my cellphone and told the resource officer that he had
thirty seconds to do something about the situation or I would call
9-1-1 and summon a "real cop" (my exact words); the choice was up
to him. He took the student down to the office, but he was back
not 20 minutes later,with admin taking no action.

After school that day, I went downtown and took out assault
charges, then went to central office and filed a grievance. Admin
at my school was horrified, telling me that my actions made the
school "look bad." I replied that no, they did a good enough job of
doing that themselves and needed no help from me. I also told them I
was seeking legal counsel and was considering filing a civil suit,
alledging that they were allowing a "hostile work environment" to
exist in the school. I contacted my teacher's association (NCAE)
but in typical fashion, they showed weak kneed reaction. I then
told them I was thinking of contacting the national headquarters
and telling them that the local chapter would not advocate for
their members even when their personal safety was in jeopardy.

If there is anything the "suits" fear, it is litigation and bad PR.

Don't take this laying down. If they can mistreat you, they can
mistreat others as well and will unless they know it will cost
them.

Please let us know how this goes
 

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