Walking off the job mid-year

S

StevenJ

Rookie
Hello,

My wife is a teacher and going into her 8th year. The first 7 years she was a standard secondary business teacher until budget cuts eliminated the position. To remain in teaching, she took a special ed job and has been working on a waiver while taking classes.

For the past 6 months, she's been slapped, pinched, choked, and had her hair pulled, along with all of her para's in the room by a single student on a daily basis. She's at the point where she can't take it anymore as administration has failed to do anything but want to create more "strategies" to fix the situation. They refuse to allow her to leave with paying thousands as "damages" for breaking the contract.

Do we have any options? Is the worst that can happen is they pull her license? Because at this point, that almost seems like a great option.

Thanks.
 
Can she talk to a lawyer or a teachers' union representative?

If she's being assaulted on a regular basis and her principal refuses to find a solution, there may be some legal action she can take.

It might be a bad career move, but I don't know that it would look any worse than walking off the job.
 
otterpop said:
Can she talk to a lawyer or a teachers' union representative?

If she's being assaulted on a regular basis and her principal refuses to find a solution, there may be some legal action she can take.

It might be a bad career move, but I don't know that it would look any worse than walking off the job.
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She's waiting on responses from the union and lawyer reps. But that's been going on for a couple weeks it seems like too.

It's my opinion that her boss just doesn't want to acknowledge there's been a problem for years that he's just been kicking the can down the road. Found out there was a para last year who had her nose broken as well, so it's been an ongoing thing.

I agree on the last sentence completely. We don't want to sue, but we also don't want to pay to leave and he refuses to just let each there own basically.

So if the worst that can happen is she loses her license, we're okay with that at this point.
 
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It's risky, but I know a couple of teachers who have told the district (through the union) that unless a transfer is granted immediately, assault charges will be files.

I know about an incident in a district near me where the child was also uncontrollable and the police told the teacher to file assault charges because that paperwork would be needed when the child got older in order to get outside help.
 
I found some information from NEA regarding situations such as your wife's. She might want to look at Scenarios 3 and 4 when talking with her own union reps. Please keep us in the loop. Situations such as these always weigh in my mind when we don't hear back.
 
catnfiddle said:
I found some information from NEA regarding situations such as your wife's. She might want to look at Scenarios 3 and 4 when talking with her own union reps. Please keep us in the loop. Situations such as these always weigh in my mind when we don't hear back.
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Was there a link you meant to include, or is this something you can search and find easily?
 
I was in the same boat last year, I taught students on the autism spectrum where my hair was pulled, and it looked like I cut my arms because of how badly they dug their nails into me. I think the worst thing that can happen if you "break a contract" is pulling your license. I've heard stories where they just put a bad "record" on file, but if done too many times they pull your contract. Depending on the state, they are all different; the person who would definitely know is the union rep!

Maybe she can take a Leave of Absence until June and just resign or request a new position. If she finds a new job ASAP, she can just break the contract because if its just a bad "record" then she's already hired somewhere else!
 
If she has not been documenting the abuse she's suffered in writing, photographs, and video, have her start pronto!

I told a class I taught at a very rough school that if I am hurt by a student that I would not be buzzing the office, but instead would call the cops. I meant it. I was never injured but some on my campus were.
 
She's got six months worth of documentation and incident reports, as well as documentation that she's passed on to admin that's been ignored over and over. So I think we're good on that front if it comes to that.

As far as the NEA website, scenario 3 fits, but the court won't involve themselves, as the county attorney all but said they're not filing charges on a juvenile with severe disability.

We've filed Incident reports with the PD, since that's the best we can do, and they have documenation of the injuries, etc...

Still waiting to hear back from the rep and the laywer. Will update tomorrow as hopefully we'll hear something but, but this has been ongoing for 5 months essentially since the second week of school in August.
 
StevenJ said:
Hello,

My wife is a teacher and going into her 8th year. The first 7 years she was a standard secondary business teacher until budget cuts eliminated the position. To remain in teaching, she took a special ed job and has been working on a waiver while taking classes.

For the past 6 months, she's been slapped, pinched, choked, and had her hair pulled, along with all of her para's in the room by a single student on a daily basis. She's at the point where she can't take it anymore as administration has failed to do anything but want to create more "strategies" to fix the situation. They refuse to allow her to leave with paying thousands as "damages" for breaking the contract.

Do we have any options? Is the worst that can happen is they pull her license? Because at this point, that almost seems like a great option.

Thanks.
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I don't know where you teach but does she have a special ed credential?
 
StevenJ said:
She has a waiver to work while getting her special ed certification at the same time.
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waiver? is she an intern?

Also, if the student(s) are too aggressive to be in a public school then she needs to begin the process of sending those students to a non-public school.
 
SPH_Teacher said:
waiver? is she an intern?

Also, if the student(s) are too aggressive to be in a public school then she needs to begin the process of sending those students to a non-public school.
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No, not an intern. You can get a waiver to work while gaining certification in that field if certified to teach in another field.

Non-public schools aren't an option in our rural area. The state requires an education be provided for everyone, which ultimately falls back on the public school being responsible for their education. All requests to move the student to a private facility have been denied or ignored, I imagine due to costs associated with it.
 
StevenJ said:
No, not an intern. You can get a waiver to work while gaining certification in that field if certified to teach in another field.

Non-public schools aren't an option in our rural area. The state requires an education be provided for everyone, which ultimately falls back on the public school being responsible for their education. All requests to move the student to a private facility have been denied or ignored, I imagine due to costs associated with it.
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I'm only familiar with California laws, what state does she work in?
 
An example would be like here in NJ. You can get a provisional TOSD, or Teacher of Students with Disabilities certificate as you take the 21 graduate credits. You need to pass 7 three hour graduate credit courses even as you teach classified student. It is taxing.
 
ktmiller222 said:
have her press charges on the kid...i have done that..make sure she documents everything
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CA will not press charges.

Went to board and was only allowed to speak for 5 minutes and they were only going to sit silently.

Long story short, nothing happened, no option for teachers, had to finish out the year to avoid losing summer pay, etc... Is getting out of teaching for the second time and will likely never go back.

Teachers have lost all rights, etc... Sad situation.
 
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