School and police officials said last week that they don’t know how many of the 220 accusations of corporal punishment and verbal abuse during the 2008-09 school year resulted in disciplinary action or criminal charges against teachers. Nor could school officials explain the variable nature of totals from prior years. In 2005-06, 219 cases were reported, and the number dropped to 89 in 2006-07 and rose slightly to 96 in 2007-08, according to police figures.
The numbers are also difficult to compare with those of other school districts. Montgomery County Public Schools did not respond to requests for information about allegations of corporal punishment. A Fairfax County Public Schools spokesman said the system didn’t keep any such data because such incidents were exceedingly rare.
The allegations, provided to the police by Hawk one, the school system’s former security contractor, were obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act. They provide no names or results of follow-up investigations. But they nevertheless offer a vivid glimpse into an issue usually out of public view. That issue surfaced last month when Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee told a business magazine that an unspecified number of teachers laid off during October budget reductions “had hit children.”
At H.D. Cooke Elementary School in Ward 1 on Oct. 24, 2008, according to the records, a staff member reported passing a boys’ bathroom and hearing a child say “ouch” and cry. she said she then heard an adult male voice say: “Now you know how it feels to hit someone.”
At Columbia Heights Education Campus in Ward 1 on April 22, 2009, a female teacher observed a male student spitting and “popped him in the back of the head.” The Hawk one narrative said that the teacher reported herself and that the police were notified.
At River Terrace Elementary School in Ward 7 on Sept. 29, 2008, a parent reported to security that his or her child had been grabbed by a female teacher who “jacked him up and threw him against the locker.”
Columbia Heights Principal Maria Tukeva and River Terrace Principal Shannon Foster declined to comment Friday. Cooke Principal Kathleen Black did not return a phone message.
Discourteous treatment
Although D.C. law doesn’t put verbal abuse in the same category as corporal punishment, reports filed by Hawk one characterized six alleged incidents that way. for example, at the now-closed Birney Elementary School in Ward 8 on Sept. 9, 2008, a parent reported to security officers that a female teacher had told her daughter that she “was going to be a whore when she grows up” because she had not done her homework.
Jennifer Calloway, a spokeswoman for Rhee, said the school system regarded Hawk One’s designation of such incidents as corporal punishment as a “housekeeping” matter and not binding. Verbal actions are regarded by the school system as “discourteous treatment,” she said.
Rhee told Fast Company magazine that some of the 266 teachers laid off in October’s budget crunch were educators “who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school.”
The comment alarmed parents and teachers and District officials because of its implication that a significant portion of the instructors had committed such offenses. when Rhee finally offered numbers to support the claim, they were relatively small: six of the 266 teachers had been suspended for corporal punishment at some point in their careers, she said, two were chronically absent without leave and one had been suspended and was under criminal investigation for allegations of sexual misconduct.
District law defines corporal punishment as the use or attempted use of physical force against a student, “either intentionally or with reckless disregard for the student’s safety, as a punishment or discipline.” Teachers are permitted to use force in self-defense, the defense of others or as necessary to maintain or regain order.
All schoolteachers and administrators are considered “mandatory reporters” under the law, required to share any information about possible abuse. Principals must report all allegations of corporal punishment or sexual misconduct to officers from the school system’s private security firm, which was Hawk one from 2005 to October 2009. (The firm went out of business and has been replaced by two other companies.) The security officers are supposed to file incident reports to the police, who determine whether a criminal investigation is warranted.
Steps for discipline
For cases that are substantiated by school system investigators but not pursued by police or prosecutors, the District’s contract with the Washington Teachers’ Union requires “progressive discipline,” usually meaning a fine for a first offense, followed by suspension or dismissal for subsequent offenses.
Union officials say that until the law was amended several years ago, teachers could be charged with corporal punishment for virtually any form of contact, including breaking up a fight. Many instructors say they are still constantly vulnerable to false claims of mistreatment. Students use the rules to settle scores; administrators can trigger corporal punishment investigations to intimidate or harass instructors they’d like to get rid of, teachers say.
After Rhee’s comments to Fast Company, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray asked Rhee and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier to detail the actions taken in response to allegations of abuse or sexual misconduct. Lanier and Rhee have both told Gray that they are working to compile the data.
Rhee said that she would like to move the District toward a system that makes it easier to remove abusive teachers whose conduct doesn’t rise to a criminal standard of proof but is still unacceptable. That would require a conversation in the community and a change in the collective bargaining agreement, she said.
“Right now in the school district, we use a criminal standard, which is a very high one to meet, even if you have evidence that is pretty alarming,” Rhee said. “Unless you have someone admitting it or there are pictures, it’s hard to say. Most of the things end up being ‘he said,’ ’she said.’ “
Asked whether she were pursuing such a change in the contract under negotiation with the union, Rhee declined to comment.
Nathan Saunders, general vice president of the teachers union, said that nothing is wrong with the current regulations and that Rhee was “trying to distract the conversation away from her outrageous comments.”
“The corporal punishment rules and regulations that exist are not problematic,” Saunders said.
Staff writer Dan Keating contributed to this report.
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