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Has Violence Against Teachers Become Accepted by Society?

148 points · 332 comments · obscurette

  1. ValueTheory · · focus · HN ↗
    "The parents of the student who assaulted me sued the district, claiming it had failed to prevent the incident. Suddenly, I found myself on phone calls with administrators and attorneys questioning whether I had done enough to stop the assault."

    This is the root of the problem. Of course, civil lawsuits are important to correct actual wrongs, but school districts seem to be so cowardly in the face of bad lawsuits that they are willing to throw teachers under the bus to avoid them.

    1. littlecorner · · focus · HN ↗
      A deeper question: why can they even have these lawsuits? Why don't the judges or juries reject the lawsuit?
      1. shagie · · focus · HN ↗
        If it has gotten to a jury, it has already taken a significant amount of time and resources from the district and the teacher.

        That moves it to an earlier point where it is dismissed much sooner. If it is not dismissed before discovery (and why would it be?), then that too takes a lot of resources from the district and the teacher.

        So it then moves to a "the district settles early so they don't have to deal with the lawsuit" and it becomes a "sue the district and get a payday since they'll settle."

        To get it moved to a "this can be dismissed as a matter of law rather than a matter of fact", then the corresponding laws need to be in place to protect the teacher.

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