Teachers strike back at disruptive students

1 Comment | Insight on the News, Dec 4, 1995 | by Stephen Goode

The Job Corps and the National Guard offer other alternatives for problem kids, adds Wallis, who favors hiring retired military personnel to staff public schools in one-to-one tutorial programs, for example. "The U.S armed forces are a superb reserve of talent with science and technology training ideal for kids," he says.

But the recent successful court decisions favoring teachers who are victims of violence may be the most effective -- and immediate -- way to deal with the problem. It satisfies teachers' concerns that disruptive students be dealt with seriously and not ignored, says Sanville. And it has the advantage of bypassing pusillanimous school administrators and, if successful, gets at students where they hurt by fining them and their families.

Sanville has advice for teachers who want to sue violent students: "Do it immediately and follow through and don't let school administration hinder your efforts." Teachers' unions in Chicago, New York and Miami now urge teachers to sue when a student's behavior becomes intolerable. Word gets out among students about successful court cases, says Sanville, who notes that Hayfield students were impressed by the amount of media coverage her own case received.

The biggest award thus far in court cases involving violent students has gone to Fran Cook of Alexandria, Ky., a Spanish teacher who won $25,000 in punitive damages earlier this year and $8,500 in emotional damages. The jury stated on the record that the student in question "exceeded the bounds of common decency" not only for his classroom behavior but also when he left a note after he graduated urging other students to talk "about different methods of murder" in Cook's classes.

There are other signs of change. In New York City, the United Federation of Teachers reported that the number of instances of physical attack on teachers and staff was down 23 percent in 1994 compared with 1993. The union attributes the change to the extensive support it now provides teachers, including those suing students.

In Atlanta, a recent survey showed the number of firearms confiscated by school officials was down by more than half from the previous year and that assault and battery and criminal trespass were down by 35 percent. School police attributed the decline to the presence of more metal detectors in the schools. All was not rosy, however: The same survey found illegal drug use up by 17 percent.

But almost everyone agrees with the motto adopted in one form or another by school districts as diverse as Ventura County, Calif., and Baltimore: "The First Line of Defense Is the Home." Wallis proposes that schools have parents sign a "parent contract." Parents would acknowledge "full responsibility for support of the school" by promising that their children will come to school "daily and punctually and that they are academically and behaviorally ready to learn."

Wallis says he is nostalgic for "the lost quality of civility" on the part of students. People are too quick to say schools only reflect the society they're in, he says. "Schools should be the one place where the parameters are so that that is not true. They should be places that create an atmosphere conducive to achievement."