As the overall state average has dropped after a three-year increase, the Dallas Independent School District continues to rise, and has more than doubled in the number of student assaults on teachers over the past few years.
In the classrooms, teachers are viewed as educators, imparting upon the nation's youth core subjects such as math, language arts and social studies. In Dallas, Texas, those teachers are getting more than they bargained for.
According to a local Dallas
news report, the number of student assaults on educators and other district employees has doubled over the past five years.
The number of assaults on teachers went from "147 to 312" over a five year period. The number of serious assaults, with injury increased from "7 to 29" during the past four years, according to district statistics.
The majority of assaults on teachers were relatively minor, according to the report, ranging from the threat of abuse to actions such as shoving. Serious assaults, such as an incident that left one teacher legally blind in one eye when a student who had complained the teacher gave too much work struck that teacher, were also part of the numbers.
Another incident involved a teacher who suffered multiple injuries to her back and neck when several students rigged up a trip wire, causing a fall that landed her in a rehabilitation program for one-third of the school year.
Along with the increase in assaults on staff was an increase in the number of student fights at DISD, according to the district discipline reports, with student fights jumping from just under 2,500 four years ago to just under 4,000 this past school year.
A problem with the increase in school fighting is that it increases the risk for injury when teachers and staff try to break up the fights.
DISD does not have a clear policy on how to handle fights within their district, leaving it up to instinctual response of the adult in charge.
According to the Texas Association of School Boards spokeswoman, Barbara Williams,
nothing in state education policy specifically addresses whether teachers should break up students fights.
Dale Kaiser, president of the National Education Association in Dallas, feels that such a policy would help teachers know better what to expect and would provide districts with clear guidelines on what to expect out of their teachers. He also says
As a professional and as an adult you don't want to see any student beaten severely. It's our natural instinct to break up a fight.
In one incident at a DISD school, a fight quickly escalated to a crowd of over 100 students observing the fight and when that crowd turned on the teachers, the situation became dangerous. One employee was struck in the face and was sent to the emergency room while another, who was trained in these types of situations, suffered an injured knee when a student whom he was restraining kicked him.
The safety of DISD employees is of concern to district superintendent, Dr. Michael Hinojosa.
Obviously, we need to do something to correct this. Anytime those numbers go up, we need to make sure that our employees are safe.
As reported by the article, Dr. Hinojosa "plans to look into the matter".
Veteran teachers cite a combination of issues as the key to the district's problems, the first being their unclear policy on fight management.
Another problem believed to contribute is an increase in disrespect towards adults, making students in the classroom harder to control. One veteran teacher stated that the older teachers don't tolerate student disrespect, claiming the more green teachers are the targets for the violence.
Houston districts, Texas' largest Independent School Districts, have shown a significant drop in overall assaults and have implemented both a Gang Unit and advanced communications technology, neither of which the DISD has implemented according to the news report.
There is additional speculation that a change in reporting procedures in DISD, going from a paper system to a direct computer system may be responsible for some of the increases in assault numbers.
DISD has 228 schools within its district jurisdiction.
*Houston had reported its number of assaults in the last school year to be at 42, compared to Dallas' 312. DISD changed their number to 29, claiming they originally reported "all assaults" on staff. The new number reflected only serious offenses.
It is unclear whether Houston's number is for serious offenses as well.
Texas Education Agency is available for Data Search information
