Teacher struck by student at West Middle School
Teacher trying to break up fight sustains injuries, resulting in trip to emergency room
By Joe McGehee
Staff Writer
Thursday, Dec. 3, a teacher at Rockford’s West Middle School sustained injuries that required immediate medical attention after breaking up a fight between two students. Witnesses reported a smaller student was involved in an altercation with a larger student when the teacher intervened.
“A teacher was struck while trying to break up a fight between two students,” said Molly Phalen, president of the Rockford Education Association. “The teacher tried to intervene and stop the fight, but was beaten to the ground by the larger of the two students, which resulted in nerve damage to his upper abdomen.
“This student only received a three-day, out-of-school suspension for attacking a teacher,” Phalen added.
Before confirming the incident with Phalen, The Rock River Times spoke with two teachers who were only willing to comment about the incident on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. When reached for comment at that time, Rockford Public School District 205 Chief Communications Officer Mark Bonne declined to respond, saying, “We are no longer going to make it our practice to respond to anonymous allegations.” Bonne said he would only reply to allegations if TRRT could provide the name of the individual or individuals making the allegations.
After confirming the incident with Phalen, several calls for Bonne to comment about Phalen’s statement went unreturned.
Since all communications with Rockford Public School District 205 employees and administrators are directed through Bonne, no one else was made available to TRRT for further comment about this incident.
From the Dec. 9-15, 2009 issue
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2 Comments
3 days of OSS for putting a teacher in the hospital?! This is outrageous! The appropriate response is you have the student arrested for assault on the spot and then you proceed to expel the student. Students know that they will only receive light discipline for what they do, they have no reason to control their behavior. This superintendent is creating a dangerous environment for students and staff with her rewritten discipline code. She is not worth minimum wage let alone the $210k we pay this superintendent. This situation is only going to escalate from hear.
Sheffield is not helping the situration. We the taxpayers pay her and the teachers. What’s going on is schools should be public knowledge. Follow her history from the past where she never stays on a job more then two years. She furthers the Broad Foundadation urban program which actually tears down schools and doens’t increase anything but more welfare.
While you are at it they say they face a $30 million shortfall, what about the $55 milllion they received in stimulus and created or saved 0 jobs? What about the city, goverments and firms in Rockford that received $100 million in stimulus and created 82 jobs? Go to recovery.gov and look for yourself.