John in Woodbridge
March 19th, 2007, 08:01 PM
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BALTIMORE - After Waverly Middle School art teacher Julia Gumminger, who quit Monday after twice being assaulted by students, came forward with her story in Wednesday’s Examiner, she heard from Mayor Sheila Dixon’s office, the Baltimore Teachers Union, several media outlets and one college classmate.
She is pleased that the crisis of student-on-teacher assaults in Baltimore schools is coming to light and that other teachers are speaking out, but she’s also disappointed in the focus of the attention.
“A lot of people are concentrating on that fact that the city is trying to pull my teaching certificate for breaking my contract,” Gumminger said Thursday, “but that’s not why I came forward. I thought standing up and talking about what I went through was the best thing I can to do for the kids. It’s a small percentage of students dragging schools down and the whole system is crumbling underneath the strain. Ninety-five percent of the kids are bright, creative, insightful and talented in art.”
One call Gumminger didn’t expect was from Stephanie Rawlings, her classmate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a cohort at Johns Hopkins in the Baltimore teaching residency program.
Rawlings, a Canton Middle language arts teacher, has been out of work since Jan. 28 following an assault and a later fight in her classroom in which her back was injured.
When the student who assaulted her came back into her classroom four times after returning from a 45-day suspension (she said she was told he would be expelled), Rawlings suffered her first “panic attack.”
She has documents confirming she’s since been treated for depression, spent four days hospitalized at Sheppard Pratt and has subsequently been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Melissa McCallister, a teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary/Middle, said she’s been assaulted four times since December by students. McCallister has been hit in the head with a textbook, pushed against a wall, and grabbed twice — once in what her husband described as an “inappropriate manner.”
She also has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Both teachers, like Gumminger, indicated they are being pushed into a corner because their transfer requests to other schools have been denied.
Their choice is either returning to an unsafe school or having the city request the state department of education pull their teaching certificate.
“I’m basically in the same situation as Julia,” Rawlings said. “I can’t return to that building — I have to quit.”
http://www.examiner.com/printa-608819~More_assaulted_teachers_come_forward.html
BALTIMORE - After Waverly Middle School art teacher Julia Gumminger, who quit Monday after twice being assaulted by students, came forward with her story in Wednesday’s Examiner, she heard from Mayor Sheila Dixon’s office, the Baltimore Teachers Union, several media outlets and one college classmate.
She is pleased that the crisis of student-on-teacher assaults in Baltimore schools is coming to light and that other teachers are speaking out, but she’s also disappointed in the focus of the attention.
“A lot of people are concentrating on that fact that the city is trying to pull my teaching certificate for breaking my contract,” Gumminger said Thursday, “but that’s not why I came forward. I thought standing up and talking about what I went through was the best thing I can to do for the kids. It’s a small percentage of students dragging schools down and the whole system is crumbling underneath the strain. Ninety-five percent of the kids are bright, creative, insightful and talented in art.”
One call Gumminger didn’t expect was from Stephanie Rawlings, her classmate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a cohort at Johns Hopkins in the Baltimore teaching residency program.
Rawlings, a Canton Middle language arts teacher, has been out of work since Jan. 28 following an assault and a later fight in her classroom in which her back was injured.
When the student who assaulted her came back into her classroom four times after returning from a 45-day suspension (she said she was told he would be expelled), Rawlings suffered her first “panic attack.”
She has documents confirming she’s since been treated for depression, spent four days hospitalized at Sheppard Pratt and has subsequently been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Melissa McCallister, a teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary/Middle, said she’s been assaulted four times since December by students. McCallister has been hit in the head with a textbook, pushed against a wall, and grabbed twice — once in what her husband described as an “inappropriate manner.”
She also has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Both teachers, like Gumminger, indicated they are being pushed into a corner because their transfer requests to other schools have been denied.
Their choice is either returning to an unsafe school or having the city request the state department of education pull their teaching certificate.
“I’m basically in the same situation as Julia,” Rawlings said. “I can’t return to that building — I have to quit.”
http://www.examiner.com/printa-608819~More_assaulted_teachers_come_forward.html