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Students Attacking Teachers - Teachers Running to the Media

By Justin Bathon

Here is an odd story out of Baltimore. A teacher was attacked by a student in the classroom. It was a fairly brutal fight and students stood around and did nothing to intervene. One student, though, did pull out the old cellphone camera and recorded it on video, which later made its way to Youtube. After the fight, the teacher went to the principal who may or may not have blamed the teacher for the fight. Also, apparently, there was some delay in disciplining the student responsible. The teacher has since left the classroom and has said she is scared to return.

Anyway, once the video is found, the teacher's union recommended that this teacher go public with the story and make the media rounds, which she did extensively (see below). She is apparently on a crusade to make schools safer for teachers from students. And because of the media firestorm, there are also calls to get rid of the principal and more.

Just a very odd story. Perhaps not so odd that it happened, but that the union turned this into a publicity stunt. I am not really sure what the purpose of such a media onslaught is in terms of changes to actual working conditions. I guess you can elicit some value in terms of embarrassing the district publicly, but I am not sure how embarrassing the administration and calling for the principal to be fired is going to improve the working conditions in Baltimore's schools. If anything this would seem to damage the working relationship between the teachers, the union and the administration. Perhaps other have thoughts.

Here is the MSNBC Interview that also gives an interview.

Here is Nancy Grace's 4 part story with doctors, 3 lawyers, union reps ... wow: Part I, Part II, Part III (below), Part IV (below). "We want justice, this is wrong."

Here is a CNN Interview as well.

Odd Story. Probably haven't heard the last of this yet either.

Full post as published by Edjurist on April 14, 2008 (boomark / email).