Mississippi Teacher Assaulted by Student

[wesandmichelle]

What is the name of your state? Mississippi

My wife teaches special education in Mississippi. In March of this year she was assaulted by one of her students. The story is this .The student has a history of violence against teachers and on many occasions has kicked, bit, hit, thrown things and very verbally abused the teachers and principal. After many incidents my wife got fed up with the abuse and called the superintendent the superintendent told her to go to the Police Dept. and to file assault charges against him. This was on a Wednesday she did and nothing was done. The next day (Thursday) the same thing and another trip to the P.D. once again nothing was done. On Friday the student picked up a chair and tried to hit her with it. In the struggle to defend herself and restrain him she was injured. The injury was an abdominal hernia she surgery to repair the hernia in April. The repair did not hold and had surgery again this month. She has missed a lot of work about two months so far. For these two months of missed work she received about 1/3 of her salary from workers comp. Our question is. Is there any recourse we can take against the school or the P.D. for not protecting her and not providing a safe workplace? Also is there any way to receive compensation for the missed work and the pain and suffering? We have talked to a couple of lawyers but they all seem to be afraid of taking on the county and state. Where do we go from here?

Thank You,
Wes and Michelle

 

[aahlee]

why not comtact the local newspaper and tv station see if you can get some publicity especially if this is a race crime.

 

[kattrask]

It doesn't sound like this is a race crime, but a case of salowing a child who is not able to function in a classroom. Are there no ways to teach this kid how to behave, or get him out of the classroom? It sounds like the classroom is out of control. How can she teach anything with that kind of constant disruption? There have to be some rules of conduct. Why wasn't the kid expelled? I understand that it is special education, but there are still standards of behavior and if they are not able to comprehend that they have no business in a public school.

The school should have intervened long ago and should be held responsible for your wife's safety. How old is this kid? The superintendent said to call the police? Why didn't the superintendent do it himself? He has an obligation to protect his employees and the other students in the school.

 

[wesandmichelle]

Hello,
This was not a race crime. The child has severe behavioral problems mostly due to bad parenting I suspect. He does not have a real learning disability they put him and all of the other uncontrollable students in my room just to get them out of there hair. I suspect that the reason that the school system did nothing is because of the fact that the parents at the time had a lawsuit against them at the time. The parents were claiming that we were not providing him with an adequate education. The principal wanted to get the child out of the school but the superintendent would not let him.
Thanks,
Michelle

 

[hgrego1015]

Michelle:

You asked if there was recourse against the police department. If you approached them with valid criminal complaints, and they refused to do anything about it then you need to go to the police department and file a formal complaint. This complaint will open an intrernal affairs investigation into weather or not your complaints were not answered correctly.
If what you say is true in regard to the agency "blowing off" the complaints then you have civil recourse against them. It also sounds like you have civil recoourse against the school board.

 

[wesandmichelle]

Well I don't know that the police department is at total fault. I had to call them about 4 or 5 times a week and they came every time. When I asked the policeman that took my assualt charges against the child, the policeman told me it would have to go to youth court. The next day I had to go and file charges again. I talked with the same policeman and he said he sent the previous days charges to the court system and he would also be sending that days charges to the court system too. I haven't heard from the court system concerning this. Also, charges were filed against him about 5 months before I filed charges by another teacher, he hit her in the face and broke her glasses. He had to go to court on that. But nothing was done to him. He got off with a don't do that again. This child didn't want to be at school. His mother had told him if he didn't want to do work he didn't have to. She asked me why I was making him do lessons. I told her my job was to teach her child not to babysit him. I told her he was very capable of learning and I was going to give it my all. I was able to teach him to add and subtract and write his name when I could get him to work. So if you ask me his mother is alot to blame for his problems.

 

[hgrego1015]

Quote: After many incidents my wife got fed up with the abuse and called the superintendent the superintendent told her to go to the Police Dept. and to file assault charges against him. This was on a Wednesday she did and nothing was done. The next day (Thursday) the same thing and another trip to the P.D. once again nothing was done.


Quote: Our question is. Is there any recourse we can take against the school or the P.D. for not protecting her and not providing a safe workplace?

I assumed by your statements that the police department in fact did nothing. There are certian laws in regard to juveniles. After clearing up your statement, it sounds to me like the law enforcement agency did what they were supposed to do.