Elementary Teachers Repeat Abuse Claims

NBC 10 News ^ | 5/23/2006 | NBC 10 Philadelphia

[cinives]

PHILADELPHIA -- After the NBC 10 Investigators first exposed violence in Philadelphia elementary schools last Thursday, teachers asked them to keep digging.

So, the NBC 10 Investigators took their hidden cameras to another school that teachers describe as a battle zone.

Last week the NBC 10 Investigators' LuAnn Cahn was told by a spokeswoman for the CEO of the Philadelphia School District, Paul Vallas, that he would not be part of a "cheap media interview," that Cahn would have to name names.

That's exactly what Cahn is doing. She is naming the elementary schools where teachers said they fear their own students. Cahn started with Franklin Smedley Elementary School.

Some of the teachers and staff call Smedley Elementary School "Deadly Smedley," even though they said nobody had died yet.

# School Violence Records

"I've been hit in the back of the head. I've been knocked to the ground. I have bruises all over my body. I've been pushed down a flight of steps. I've been punched in the eye twice. I've been threatened with a knife. It just doesn't stop," one teacher said.

The NBC 10 Investigators promised to protect the teachers' identities, but the teachers asked NBC 10 to reveal their school -- to bring hidden cameras to their playground and show some of what they say they face every day.

"There are kids threatening to kill you. Coming in with knives. They're bringing in big butcher knives," a teacher said.

"I'm a disciplinarian all day long. I break up one fight and another fight starts. It's constant, ongoing, all day long," another teacher said.

"There has been oral sex in the fire tower. There has been first-graders humping in the library. There has just been this thing -- I had no idea what it was, it's called a 'wallie' -- they'll do a strip tease dance on their lap. I had no idea what this was until I physically saw it myself, and they're just -- it's out of control," another teacher said.

Vallas said that violence is down 15 percent throughout the school district.

"That's a lie because they're not reporting it. It's not getting reported. You have to fight with the administration, do a serious incident report," a teacher told the NBC 10 Investigators.

"This is not 'Mayberry RFD.' This is a tough urban district," Vallas said.

Vallas consented to an interview after Cahn showed him e-mails from Smedley staffers. He said 1,700 grade school students have been expelled this year.

"You don't expel 1,700 kids if you're not being responsive to incidents that are being communicated," Vallas said.

"Smedley has made a turnaround. The climate is better than it's ever been," said Smedley Principal James Cantwell. "Anything that gets reported gets investigated."

"Teachers who say they've been (verbally abused) say there's been retaliation against them, there's been a meeting," Cantwell said.

"So this is fabrication?" Cahn said.

"I would have to say yes," Cantwell said.

"You think they're just lying?" Cahn said.

"Well there's not truth to it," Cantwell said.

"Most principals know if they fail to report or they mistreat their rank-and-file teachers they could, in fact, lose their jobs," Vallas said.

Since the NBC 10 Investigators' first report on elementary school violence, teachers across the district have called and e-mailed the station. Teachers at Bluford, Edmunds, Elkin, Kenderton, Morton, Reynolds, Smedley, Southwark and Webster reported they are facing increasing out-of-control violence from their youngest students.

"What do you want Mr. Vallas to do?" Cahn asked a teacher.

"Stop saying the violence has gone down. It has not even near gone down. It's much worse than when I start teaching, which was over a decade ago," the teacher said.

You can contact Philadelphia school district CEO by going to the district's home page at www.phila.k12.pa.us/offices/ceo and e-mailing Vallas at ceo@phila.k12.pa.us

If you have comments for the NBC10 Investigators, e-mail them to wcauinvestigators@nbc.com.

[cinives]

Our public schools at work. School choice or homeschooling is the only answer.

[sure_fine]

ah, the school system Mayor Ed Rendell (now Governor) built

[pogo101]

If 1,700 students have been expelled -- I assume that means in the past 12 months? -- then at least the admins are doing something about the bad apples. But there'd be no excuse for admin pooh-poohing of reports of persistent student-on-teacher abuse.

Maybe it's time for armed guards, or trained (armed) volunteers.

[vpintheak]

All these kids need is to get the living crap beat out of them for misbehaving once or twice. Yes a serious ass whooping by anyone and the bastards won't step out of line again. If presented by a unified front this crap wouldn't happen much at all.

[P-40]

admin pooh-poohing of reports of persistent student-on-teacher abuse.

That's why admin makes the big bucks. :)

[atomicpossum]

The failure is the parents', not the school district. Teachers can't raise them to be decent human beings if the parents have failed.

[walford]

When told of my trouble finding work after graduation last year, a prof suggested that I consider substitute teaching to make ends meet. The video of the 5-year-old girl in Florida dissuaded me.


It's not that children are getting worse -- they are just not being given any limits while the limits imposed upon the adults who must manage them grow ever tighter. Recall in that video that the vice-principal was not allowed to restrain her, only block the punches and say "no, stop that."


So the police were called and there was a major outcry against that. The little girl wasn't stupid; she figured out very quickly that she had the advantage in terms of who is allowed to do what and she exploited it.

At least when I drove a cab I was allowed to fight back -- and did upon occassion. No one in their right mind would consider becoming a school teacher today.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

School choice or homeschooling is the only answer.

For this school district, yes.
But for many, many others across the country, kids are getting quality education in safe environments.
You can't lump them all into one bucket of slop based on reports coming out of the worst.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Reading quickly, I didn't catch right away that this is about elementary school.

My God.

[danno3150]

If 1,700 students have been expelled -- I assume that means in the past 12 months? -- then at least the admins are doing something about the bad apples. So where do all the bad apples go? The school system is required to educate the little darlings no matter what. If the school system is just shuttling their problems from one school to another, then the expulsions mean nothing. Since I didn't see anything in the article about reform schools, I'll assume that this is the case.

[Zeppo]

"Stop saying the violence has gone down. It has not even near gone down. It's much worse than when I start teaching, which was over a decade ago," the teacher said.

Please, please tell me that this teacher is not an English teacher...

[daybreakcoming]

Please, please tell me that this teacher is not an English teacher...

I rather think it was the reporter's wording. I rarely read a news article anymore without numerous grammar/spelling/factual errors in it. Grating.

[pogo101]

I'll admit ignorance on "where do those expelled go?" I had assumed that an expulsion was a full-blown exception to the usual rule that a district is obliged to keep trying to educate a student. At least in my district in Ohio 20 years ago, expelled meant the end, for that school-year at least.

[danno3150]

My question was somewhat rhetorical. I'm somewhat cynical when it comes to these things. I really don't think that they can send a grade school aged child home for the year, so I have the feeling that they just shuffle the deck. This would be consistent with the touchy-feely 60's inspired ethos that got public education into this mess to start with.

[P-40]

So where do all the bad apples go?

They have some alternative schools here...or they did anyway.

[garbanzo]

It's not that children are getting worse -- they are just not being given any limits while the limits imposed upon the adults who must manage them grow ever tighter.

Thank your favorite trial lawyer and indifferent juries for this situation. Given that any touching of a student leads immediately to cries of "abuse", school districts have no other choice than to prohibit teachers from actually intervening in any sort of violent behavior from students. And the inevitable result is the pictures depicted in your post.

[cinives]

You are absolutely correct but - the kids are in school for 6-7 hours a day. If teachers and administrators were allowed to discipline beyond suspension and expelling, something could be made of these kids in spite of the parents.

[cinives]

What is your definition of a "quality education" ?

Have you read their curriculum - their textbooks ? Your kids are getting the same watered-down globalist content as everywhere, unless their textbooks are 20 years old.

While their classrooms may be more orderly and safe, the textbooks and other curriculum sources do not promote a quality education.

I yanked my kid out of 6th grade in an upper-middle-class suburban award-winning school district ranked in the top 25 school districts in Pennsylvania with very high SAT test scores. Why, you ask ? Discipline was lax in all the schools in the district, bullying by teachers and students was rampant, and the curriculum for 6th grade (for example) was geared to a 4th grade level in language arts, science, and social studies, and the gifted and talented program was nonexistent until high school.

[butternut_squash_bisque]

Arm the teachers with tasers. Problem solved.