By TAWNELL D.

HOBBS
Staff Writer
tdhobbs@dallasnews.com

Diana May didn’t think to look down after leaving a portable building at Seagoville
High School. So she didn’t see the trip wire strung across a walkway.
The special-education teacher landed hard on her left side, receiving multiple
injuries, mainly to her neck and lower back.
“It wasn’t meant directly for me, but they could have warned me,” she said of the
three students punished for setting the wire.
Student assaults on Dallas Independent School District employees and volunteers
have more than doubled in the last five years, from 147 incidents in 2002-03 to 312 in
2006-07, according to information reported to the Texas Education Agency. Information
for the current school year is not yet available
The more serious assaults, those that left the victim injured, also increased in DISD
last school year, from 18 to 29 — while such incidents dropped statewide after rising for
three years.
Some teachers find the trend in Dallas disturbing — but not surprising.
“You can do a simple thing like discipline a child and have to fight your way out of a
situation,” said Mary Strickland, a veteran math teacher at Kimball High School in west
Oak Cliff. “I’m afraid some teacher is going to actually be killed if this continues. These
kids are out of control.”
DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said he’s concerned about the increase and
he plans to assign staff to investigate why the trend is happening.
“Obviously, we need to do something to correct this,” he said. “Anytime those
numbers go up, we need to make sure that our employees are safe. For whatever reasons
the numbers are up, we’ve got to get them down.”
The leaders of Dallas employee organizations believe the numbers of assaults are
actually higher than reported. And an opinion issued last week by U.S. District Court
chief judge Sidney A. Fitzwater validated the allegation.
The judge stated that violent acts in DISD have been under-reported out of fear of
the district losing public funding. It also states that the board of trustees hasn’t created a
policy to train teachers on how to deal with student violence despite its knowledge of
injuries to DISD teachers and staff.
“Attempting to keep the number of reported acts of student violence down, the Board
[of trustees] has discouraged teachers from reporting student violence,” the opinion says.
[DISD response]
Just under half of DISD’s 228 schools reported at least one student assault against an
employee last year. Many of the assaults were minor, such as a student shoving an adult
or threatening to seriously hurt one. But some victims landed under doctor’s care, such as
a teacher who became legally blind after a brutal attack. The student complained of the
teacher giving too much work before throwing the first blow — a hit to the left eye.
Dallas school district officials said they don’t know why the numbers have risen. No
reporting rules have changed and security in schools has tightened — including the use of
security cameras in most high schools — during this period. Officials did speculate,
however, that the switch about two years ago to a computerized system increased
reporting because principals could log incidents directly into district records instead of
passing paper up the chain.
//****do teachers agree with this assessment? or have a different opinion about why
the numbers are up (like kids are fighting more or more likely to join gangs?)
quote from a teacher about concern….
[SUBHEAD]
The leaders of Dallas employee organizations believe the numbers of assaults are
actually higher than reported. They also say their members have some big concerns: that
DISD doesn’t have a clear policy on whether teachers should break up fights and that
teachers who are seriously hurt by students sometimes have to fight for benefits they’re
entitled to.
Ms. Strickland, 63, said newer teachers are more likely targets of violence. “With the
older teachers, we won’t tolerate a lot,” she said.
Employees seriously injured in attacks can get “assault leave.” The relief is
mandated by state law and allows school employees to be paid, minus any workers’
compensation pay, for up to two years to recuperate after a physical assault at work
without being charged vacation or sick leave.
DISD spent $1.2 million on assault leave for 42 employees from January 2004 to
November 2007, according to a Dallas Morning News analysis. That amounted to 4,819
days of pay, an average of about four months per injured employee.
One hall monitor who got assault leave was attacked by students and parents who
kicked and hit him in the library at Zumwalt Middle School. The incident nearly turned
into catastrophe after a DISD police officer drew his gun to stop a parent from hitting the
hall monitor over the head with a projector.
To receive assault leave, a person must be injured seriously enough for the student
attacker to be prosecuted for assault. DISD police officers determine whether a student
should be charged, said Charles Tuckey, DISD’s student discipline manager. He added
that even the most minor of assaults will land a student in a disciplinary alternative
education program.
“We do not want any young person putting their hands on teachers,” Dr. Tuckey
said.
In Houston, the school district there is making progress in reducing serious assaults
after experiencing a three-year increase. Houston school Police Chief Charles Wiley
attributes a big drop in serious assaults — from 127 in 2005-06 to 42 in 2006-07 — to
several factors, including a new gang unit that works on- and off-campus and an
improved communications system that allows better coordination between school police
and outside departments.
“Before, we couldn’t talk to any of the other law enforcement agencies,” Chief
Wiley said. “Now we can talk to them just by switching a channel.”
Dallas school police don’t have such a communications set up. But DISD spokesman
Jon Dahlander said district officers can monitor Dallas Police Department activity and
make contact with city officers on their district-issued cell phones. As for addressing
gangs, DISD doesn’t have a gang unit but uses other methods, such as a gang specialist,
Mr. Dahlander said.
[SUBHEAD]
 Dale Kaiser and Aimee Bolender, who each lead DISD employee associations, say
they’ve been told by members that some Dallas principals dissuade staffers from filing
assault charges to keep their school from being labeled a violent place. Under federal law,
schools that log certain amounts of violent acts can be labeled “persistently dangerous”
schools.
Mr. Kaiser, president of the National Education Association in Dallas, said the
increase in assaults could be a disturbing sign that teachers are losing even more respect
from students. He believes kids are being influenced by such popular television shows as
Family Guy and Jimmy Neutron, which portray teachers as “fumbling idiots.”
“We have encouraged our members to go ahead and report these [assaults] and make
sure to follow through,” Mr. Kaiser said. “They’re there to teach and help our children,
and there’s absolutely no reason for them to be assaulted.”
Ms. Bolender, president of Alliance-AFT teacher’s association, said that employees
shouldn’t give up on pursuing assault charges.
“If the district doesn’t report this as an assault, the individual has difficulty taking
advantage of state law,” she said. She added that some injured workers have found it
difficult to get the pay when they are not the intended target of the assault.
“If a teacher breaks up a fight and gets hit, the district is saying the students did not
intentionally hurt the teacher,” Ms. Bolender said. “If you expect teachers to get
involved, they should be able to get assault leave.”
Fighting incidents in DISD have increased in the last couple of years — from 2,406
in 2004-05 to 3,961 in 2006-07, according to TEA. Ms. Bolender wants the district to
create guidelines on what employees should do when a fight breaks out – interfere or stay
out of it? She said some employees, such as Ms. May, who fell over the trip wire, have
found it difficult to get assault leave if they weren’t the intended target of the violent act.
Dr. Hinojosa said he isn’t aware of anything in writing telling employees how to
handle fights. He said that the district is willing to consider any recommendations from
the employee associations on addressing the issue.
“Sometimes things arise and you just have to create a policy,” Dr. Hinojosa said.
Barbara Williams, spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Boards, said
there’s nothing in state policy that specifically addresses teachers interfering in student
fights. An on-line check of local policies for large Texas school districts, including
Houston and Fort Worth, yielded no results.
[cut] DISD may have to address the fighting issue in U.S. District Court. A former
teacher injured during a student fight is suing the district for $300,000 for pain, suffering
and lost wages. She contends that DISD provided no guidelines on how to respond to
student fights although school trustees have generally been made aware of student
violence. The case is pending.
[SUBHEAD]
Some Dallas employees say they have felt retaliated against for reporting an assault.
Former Bryan Adams High School registrar Paulette “P.G.” Legg is fighting her
termination from DISD, which she said occurred as she was recuperating from injuries
incurred while breaking up a fight last school year at Bryan Adams High School. She said
the district had demanded she come back to work before she was healed.
 Ms. Legg said a big part of her job as a registrar was dealing with parents on
emotional issues, such as truancy and registration. But that didn’t prepare her for a brawl
outside her office door.
Some parents and students were fighting over who was first in line to see Ms. Legg,
according to a teacher’s eyewitness account filed with DISD investigators. Ms. Legg said
she stepped in to break up the fight, describing the feeling as being “in the eye of the
violence.” She received about a month of assault leave for what she said were multiple
injuries suffered from the fight, including damage to her neck and left foot.
“I screamed for I don’t know how long,” Ms. Legg said of attempts to alert other
staffers for help. “They were beating the heck out of each other. Blood was everywhere.”
DISD doesn’t discuss personnel issues. But a memo, obtained by The News, cited a
number of reasons for Ms. Legg’s termination, including that she was insubordinate after
being absent from work for five consecutive days without notifying her supervisor.
A district investigation states that Ms. Legg refused to meet with investigators who
were looking into whether she was insubordinate and had falsified an injury report. Also,
a district investigator stated in an e-mail that Ms. Legg had provided no documentation
from a doctor. Ms. Legg denies all the allegations and said she has hired an attorney to
help get her job back.
[SUBHEAD]
Ms. May, who was 54 at the time she fell over the trip wire in March 2006, said it
wasn’t easy proving that she was assaulted. She was denied assault leave by then-human
resources director Troy Coleman. In a Dec. 6, 2006 letter, Mr. Coleman stated that Ms.
May’s injury was not considered an assault under the law, and he offered no explanation.
Mr. Coleman has since left the district.
A police officer said back then that charges couldn’t be filed against the students
responsible because the wire wasn’t intentionally set for Ms. May, noting that some
students also tripped over it, according to a memo from then-Seagoville High associate
principal Doug Snowden that was provided by Alliance-AFT.
Two students who helped set the trip wire received a three-day suspension, while
another was placed in in-school suspension, according to the memo.
Ms. May, represented at the time by Alliance-AFT, appealed the denial of assault
leave and won. A DISD hearing officer in June awarded her nearly three months of
retroactive assault leave pay and reinstated the sick days that she had used to heal.
Ms. May retired from DISD last summer and is not currently working. She said
lasting pain from the attack had caused her to miss too much work.
“It’s been a freakin’ nightmare,” she said of the experience.