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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > May > 21
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Parents: The new school bullies
Sarah Carr, one of the excellent reporters on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s fine education team, writes today about an increase in assaults of school staff by parents. And her accounts of the attacks are pretty shocking. Here’s a taste:
Elizabeth Morgan charged into her son’s first-grade classroom this month, authorities say, shouting to the teacher: “I am sick and tired of you picking on my son and lying about him.”
With the help of her middle-school age daughter, Morgan then cornered the Parkview Elementary School teacher, according to a criminal complaint, and struck her several times in the face and body with a closed fist in front of the first-graders.
Here’s a little more detail of the attack:
Morgan was upset after her son received a one-day suspension from his teacher, Merele Mitz, according to the complaint. Morgan pleaded not guilty at a preliminary hearing Wednesday, and her lawyer says she denies the allegations.
When Morgan showed up in the classroom to protest the suspension, Mitz tried to calm Morgan down by agreeing with her, but Morgan threatened Mitz, saying to her, “I’ll get your stinky ass,” and began hitting her, the complaint says.
Kindergarten teacher Katie Krumins, who came when she heard the disruption from the hallway, told Morgan, “Honey, you need to stop.”
But, the complaint says, Morgan turned to her, arms outstretched - pointing to her chest - and said: “Do you want a piece of this?” She threw Krumins against a cabinet and resumed hitting Mitz, the complaint says.
Two male teachers got between Morgan and Mitz, and Morgan went out into the hallway, where she encountered the school principal and a principal supervisor for the district. She pushed the supervisor, causing her to fall on top of a student, who began to cry, according to the complaint. A classroom of first-graders at Parkview Elementary School watched the entire incident from their desks. A group of kindergartners saw much of it from the hallway.
Morgan has been charged with battery to two school district employees, Mitz and Yvonne Hopgood, the principal supervisor.
Carr’s story said in Milwaukee County alone there have been seven criminal cases this year involving parents attacking school staff. The problem has overwhelmed the school district’s legal department, which has been seeking boatloads of restraining orders against parents who have been disruptive, if not violent, at schools as a pre-emptive measure.
While it seems something especially troubling is going on in Milwaukee (nowhere near this much trouble happens in Miami Valley schools), the problem of increasingly combative parents is a growing problem everywhere. (I’ve even had my own experience with a belligerent parent in my daughter’s suburban first grade classroom.)
It’s gone beyond the annoyance of parents who back their kids against the teacher no matter what. And now these safety concerns force schools to be less hospitable places where parents may not always feel welcome. And after an account like the one above, who can blame school personnel if they watch parents like a hawk, sniffing for any sign that an outside adult visitor could be a violent outburst waiting to happen?
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