USA Today (11/18, Toppo) reports that in the 11 months since the Sandy Hook shootings, “another school attack or safety scare seems to unfold almost weekly.” It would be “easy to conclude that school has never been a more dangerous place, but for the USA’s 55 million K-12 students and 3.7 million teachers, statistics tell another story: Despite two decades of high-profile shootings, school increasingly has become a safer place.”
Teacher Deaths Focus Attention On Student-On-Teacher Violence
The AP (11/17) reports that experts say that “the phenomenon of student-on-teacher violence is too often ignored,” noting that the recent deaths of teachers in Nevada and Massachusetts at the hands of students have “brought the issue to the forefront.” The AP reports that a task force on “classroom violence directed at teachers” chaired by Dr. Dorothy Espelage of the University of Illinois found “that little has been done to try to understand or prevent such incidents.” The piece notes that National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel says that “more attention and resources should be directed at diagnosing and treating mental health issues and training educators in classroom management and safety.”
