Society Is In Trouble

Are our schools out of control?
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Regina Brett
Plain Dealer Columnist

Chairs flying, fists flying, what happens next?

On Monday, an assistant principal at South High School was knocked unconscious by a flying chair. Last week, a boy's jaw was broken during a gang fight at Glenville.

What will it take to make Cleveland schools safe? The CEO of schools and her boss, the mayor, need to figure that out fast.

I just interviewed 30 Cleveland teachers. They all said the kids are out of control. Suspensions and expulsions are discouraged because the numbers will look bad to the folks downtown. No consequences means the kids run wild.

Few teachers will let me publish their names. After I wrote about Collinwood High School, the teacher who invited me got a written reprimand. After I wrote about vandalism at Glenville, the district demanded the names of all the tradesmen and threatened their jobs.

A teacher at Albert B. Hart, a K-8 school, called her school a zoo. Kids have thrown carrots, Jell-O, candy, chalk and crayons at her. In March, a boy threw a juice bottle at her, clipping her above the eyebrow. It covered her with juice and left her head throbbing. The boy ran. The students blocked the exit and she heard them say, "What else can we do to her?"

Scared, she ordered them all out and locked the door. They pulled on the door and screamed at her. She hasn't been back. She heard that the boy who threw the bottle was not expelled.

A teacher at South High has been hit by a trash can, empty plastic bottles and by a kid who rammed into his chest. "This is the most out-of-control situation I have ever seen," he said.

Barnaby Linet is on medical leave from East Technical High School. Last year, kids smashed his door window with a chair and sprayed the fire extinguisher at him. The chemical burned his eyes. He went to the emergency room. The next day, he was scolded for leaving. What happened to the student?

"Nothing," he said.

In September, a kid threw a bottle of liquid soap at him. What happened to that student?

"Nothing," he said.

In November, kids smashed the emergency exit light, and threw the battery at his door while he was teaching. It sounded like a brick. He's on leave for anxiety and depression.

A teacher at Robert Fulton told me that a fourth-grade teacher was punched in the face last month. While she was out on assault leave, three teachers couldn't get her class under control. They had to call the police.

The art teacher there was assaulted breaking up a fight. The woman tore her rotator cuff. Another teacher was tripped on purpose by a student, injuring his groin area. The boy wasn't suspended.

A teacher at East High was hit twice. After teachers broke up a fight, a boy slapped her. When a girl went to slap a boy who rubbed up against her, she hit the teacher by mistake. The teacher hasn't returned. The doctors call it post-traumatic stress.

A teacher at Collinwood has the same diagnosis. Hers came from being lunged at, from seeing kids bloodied in fist fights, from seeing her classroom destroyed, from hearing a student threaten, "I'm gonna get you, you white-trash skinny bitch."

At Union Elementary, a kindergartner threatened a teacher with scissors and a teacher's aide was hurt when a child pushed her, injuring the aide's back.

"It really scares me where we're headed," a teacher there told me.

It should scare us all.