Everything reasonable for the safety of the child and of the teacher.

Seven attackers? Leaping into the middle of the fray would have only added to the victim list. But show me that the teacher did more than just sit there and I'll absolve said teacher.

is the teacher that sat there fired?

Maybe you should ask North Avenue to clarify their policy--it's like expecting a straight answer from a politician!

In response to Larry: No, the teacher wasn't fired. She died a few years ago. The assistant principal who handled the incident was later promoted to be the principal of the school and now is an administrator at North Avenue.

You know, I'm relatively young and in good health. I often break up fights in the hallway or in other classrooms of middle school students who are sometimes twice my size.
Many of the students in my school are very, very angry and have not learned how to correctly deal with this anger. They also have difficulty demonstrating self-control. If I was twenty years older, maybe a little more sane, or had a family to take care of, I would not be stepping into these fights.
Unfortunately, fights in Baltimore City schools are not rare occurences. At my school, it's weekly if not daily. Sexual assault is never, ever, ever okay, so I feel the Bridget Banks case is a different animal. But I don't feel that teachers should be expected to get in the middle of a violent confrontation.
If that is what is expected from parents, administrators, etc., then there should be some sort of training or SOMETHING.

The question is what would a reasonable person do under those circumstances? If the teacher in question a) contacted the proper authority b) tried to protect other innocent bystanders c) did not encourage the students fighting, he/she would not be held liable. I am not an attorney, nor do I have any legal training, but I hold firm the belief that everyone (including students) needs to be held accountable for their actions. As far as how the particular school dealt with the situation, ask the administrators—after all, they are the powers-that-be—they get paid the big bucks and they make the big decisions.

In some school districts teachers are not allowed to (physically) intervene when students fight. If they do, they are reprimanded/disciplined. This policy prevents a lot of teachers from getting hurt.

I, myself, have been hurt too many times trying to break up fights. I don't plan on jumping into the middle of them, but when I see a student getting pounded by another, I react without considering my well-being. I'm not suggesting that's a good thing. It isn't. Since finding myself in the middle of a fight where a student had a knife, I've become much more careful.

Ideally we would have a means to contact hall monitors/administrators/school police when fights break out, but it's not that simple. Some of us are in classrooms without working intercoms and/or the hall monitors.administrators/police are not readily available.

Teachers should not get involved. The administrators and the system in general will sell out a teach in a second if they intervene and something goes wrong. Regardless of the teacher's intention to possibly save a girl from a sexual assault, if one of the other students gets hurt or alleges that the teacher hurt them, the school system will send the teacher packing.

This quote from your story (below) just begs for substantiation. Where is the data that there are so many classroom management problems and that there are so many special education students involved in these problems? I also take exception to the characterization of this particular situation in which a child was sexually assaulted as "horseplay that spiralled out of control".

"The case is an extreme example of the classroom management problems that many schools face, particularly with situations involving special-education students, and of how quickly horseplay can spiral out of control."

Is it just me or is something very wrong with this whole system? If you were witnessing a person getting assaulted on the street, wouldn't you get involved? If the person is getting beaten up, it's ok not to intervene? If the person is getting sexually assaulted, then it's time to step up?
Violence is violence, no matter the degree of violence or the gender of the victim.

If teachers are prohibited from physically intervening, then security measures need to be improved. How about security cameras in the classrooms? Alarm buttons that teachers can wear on their person to trigger an alert or a siren? More police in the schools?

Also, what about the perpetrators of violence in schools? What's being done to remediate their anger and poor impulse control? Students with Individual Education Plans can have a behavioral program added to the IEP to help them learn to control themselves better. What about students who don't have IEP's? Don't they have a right to receive some kind of aid? Being unable to control anger and impulses makes these kids poor candidates for most of life's major roles, whether as an employee or as a spouse or as a parent.

Steph comments that fights in Baltimore City schools are not rare. Well, why is that? Clearly, the teachers who continue to work under such stress must be really dedicated to their jobs and their students. Why aren't the parents and the teachers joining forces and insisting that studies be done to find out what is causing these kids to melt down with such frequency and what can be done to stop it? Long term stress is known to be a causal factor in many diseases - as a matter of public health,for both teachers and students, it's time to lower the stress factor caused by violence in schools.

With all due respect, Sue, you must have never been in a Baltimore City zone/neighborhood school.

I think that if someone can answer the questions you ask, Sue, you'd probably come pretty close to answering why we have about 270 murders in the city.

Concerned Citizen, you're simply incorrect. Contractually, it's possible there's no express liability to intervene. However, students-teachers-administrators have a special relationship. The law imposes tort duties on teachers that it wouldn't for a "reasonable person." The standard of care is different.

In any case, I think Steph hit the nail on the head.

I have been in the city system since 1991. During that time, the number of fights and their severity have increased exponentially. The fights I will not endeavor to break up involve girls who are becoming much more violent and intense than boys. However, I agree with Bob about how easily a teacher can be sold down the river if a student becomes injured even if the teacher did the "correct" thing. See that one too many times. In a perfect world, parents would not tell teachers that "they can't make their children behave"--that from the mother of a 12-year-old and parents would want the schools to make correct behavior a priority. The reality is that most of our parents are so burdened with the day-to-day events of their lives that the children are left to their own devices and violence is a logical outcome.

This might not the place for it, but there was no blog post on the suspension article (11/29). What I've heard consistently from teachers is that principals have a no suspension policy for ALL infractions, including violent ones. I know this is not what Alonzo said (he said try not to suspend for non-violent infractions), but this is what happening, and contributes to the unsafe environment for students and teachers.

Alonzo needs to clarify this explicitly as soon as possible, so that teachers who are spit on (a form of assault) can't be told by their principals that nothing can be done because the CEO said no suspensions.

I posted this on the article forum on suspensions, but it seems to fit here too.

What I've heard consistently from teachers is that principals have a no suspension policy for ALL infractions, including violent ones. I know this is not what Alonzo said (he said try not to suspend for non-violent infractions), but this is what happening, and contributes to the unsafe environment for students and teachers.

Alonzo needs to clarify this explicitly as soon as possible, so that there are consequences for students who fight (which there aren't at many schools right now) or that teachers who are spit on (a form of assault) can't be told by their principals that nothing can be done because the CEO said no suspensions.

Bill, thanks for your feedback. You're right, I'm looking in from the outside (outside the Beltway).

If the problem is the uncontrolled anger of the students, why isn't a mediation initiative in the schools being proposed? Why isn't anyone organizing the students to focus their anger on the issues they are angry about? Has anyone asked the students what is fueling their anger in the first place? Has anyone asked them to step up and find constructive ways to channel their anger? Maybe a 12 step group type of program, that allows people to learn what they are responsible for and what they can't control, would be a safe place to start.

I don't have any answers...maybe this is naive and simplistic.

It seems like a sin to let these kids just slip away.....

Bill, with all due respect, I disagree. I can't remember the last time a teacher was sued or reprimanded for his/her actions during a fight. I've personally witnessed teachers doing what I've stated during numerous fights and there haven't been any negative consequences. If what you're suggesting is true, we would have a lot of firings and lawsuits. If you read my post, you would have noticed that I never said "Teachers should NEVER be held accountable." I suggest you re-read it. Furthermore, look at the people making the big decisions--what Bob said is consistent with what I posted.

Sue, you have good ideas. Unfortunately, what Baltimore City does not have is money. Those implementations would definitely call for money to be spent on my students, which is generally not the case in any matter. And if they were somehow implemented, they would probably fall along the lines of our current teacher professional developments--a huge waste of time.
Many, many of our students don't have the family support at home and teachers end up being babysitters, mothers, counselors, hall monitors and parole officers.
The quality of counseling that you call for (which would just about have to be one-on-one) would be absolutely amazing, but it is just such an overwhelming task that I don't ever see our school system investing in it.

Concerned -

I think you're right that they're aren't that many lawsuits. I was just saying that it's possible, not that it happens. Teachers do owe a higher degree of care to students. The surrounding circumstances play an interesting role in the analysis, but I still think that teachers may be liable - lawfully speaking (not at all morally speaking).

Bill, actually I did take a graduate level education law class for administrators--it doesn't qualify as a law class you may be taking (I noticed you're a law student). We were told that there's a pretty fine line between being guilty of negligence in a fight. As a matter of fact, in cases where other teachers have intervened and were injured, the system was not helpful nor sympathetic toward them. They were actually told to be more careful in breaking up fights! I have several colleagues who are female and shorter than 5'5", which is common in the system. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but I'm having a really hard time imagining a jury finding them guilty for not trying to separate a fight between students twice their size. I almost think Iraqis have a better shot with a civilian lawsuit against Blackwater USA or maybe a shareholder lawsuit against a company for breaking SEC rules--now that is more common (Enron, WorldCom, etc)!

Concerned - you're making a faulty assumption. You're assuming that all cases go to a jury. Realistically, this isn't the case at all. In fact, for tort claims such as this, a teacher in litigation has a SIGNIFICANT incentive to settle rather than pay for lawyer fees. You're right, if it went to a jury then a teacher might be able to convince the trier of fact that she did not deviate from the expected standard of care. However, I doubt she'd be willing to pay the hundreds/thousands of dollars she'd have to in order to get to that stage (lord knows the union probably wouldn't be sufficient coverage). In our adversarial system where litigants pay their own fees, settlement becomes a much more attractive option. Also, little detail clarification - and honestly not sarcastic at all, just informative... you're not really "guilty" of negligence - that's criminal. I seriously doubt a criminal charge would be feasible, no criminal recklessness here. What could happen is that she is found "liable" for negligence under a tort claim. Very different because the standard of proof is vastly different.