The district has to step up

By Andrew Hibschman
Collegian Reporter
March 21, 2007

Working in a Philadelphia public school is becoming more and more dangerous each day. Many public school teachers are being injured by their students, including one teacher who had his neck broken, and one pregnant teacher whose kindergarten student punched her in the stomach. In the past, a school teacher’s worries extended only to which practical joke his or her students might play on April Fool’s Day. Now, however, Philadelphia public school teachers face students with personal vendettas who are carrying guns and who aren’t afraid, seemingly, of anything. This violence is not decreasing, mainly because of the public school district’s useless strategies for dealing with offenders. These strategies are at best worthless and at worst deadly; something needs to change.

I’ve already mentioned some of the more extreme student/teacher confrontations; some, however, require more explanation. The case of Frank Burd, an algebra teacher whose 15-year-old student snapped his neck, is probably one of the most ridiculous: the teacher took a student’s iPod from him because he was listening to it in class, and later this student and his friend attacked the teacher, leading to the teacher falling and sustaining the injury (“Teen admits attack that left teacher with a broken neck,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 13). All of this over an iPod. How can this be allowed to happen? Why wasn’t there some safety measure in place to stop two 15-year-olds from beating their teacher up? One of the students had been suspended multiple times and had been expelled from multiple schools, yet he was allowed as much freedom as any other student. Why didn’t the administration realize that the first two expulsions hadn’t cured this student of his errant ways?

The problem with the School District of Philadelphia’s current strategy of suspending or expelling students who attack their teachers lies in the fact that these students do not want to be in school in the first place. When the school district gives out suspensions and expulsions, they are only giving these kids exactly what they want. Only when those in authority do everything they must to protect those whose job it is to educate young minds will the violence against teachers stop. These students need to be tried and treated as adults, since that is how they are acting. Out-of-school suspension is not working; schools should try in-school suspension. That way, students are still in school and are not getting what they had hoped for through the use of violence. Some of the more extreme cases might even require some sort of fine, since money is something that children of any age can understand. Jail time might even be an option for some older high school students so that they can see where their lives are headed if their deviant behavior continues.

The only problem with my suggestions is that they are never going to happen. The school district is so worried that students will not show up to school at all that they are afraid to push even more of them away. While this is understandable, it should not be something that causes such a retreat from punishment. Until the school district realizes that there will always be students ready and willing to learn, they will keep under-prosecuting these criminals and these attacks will keep happening, and keep getting worse.

hibschmana1@lasalle.edu