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Student at Dorchester school punched principal into unconsciousness, police say; school will be shut tomorrow
By adamg on Wed, 11/03/2021 - 8:49pm
Boston Police report a 16-year-old student at the Henderson K-12 Inclusion School in Dorchester punched the principal to the ground as school let out this afternoon.
Principal Patricia Lampron, who is over 60, was unconscious when a police officer on standard school-release duty outside the upper campus, 18 Croftland Ave., got to her around 2:30 p.m. She was transported to a local hospital by ambulance with injuries considered serious but not life-threatening, police say.
The girl was arrested on charges of assault and battery on a person causing serious injury and assault and battery on a public employee, police say.
Statement by Lampron's daughter.
Remaining school administrators have ordered the school's upper campus shut tomorrow as they try to get to the bottom of what happened and so that teachers can meet to figure out how to help students who return when the campus re-opens on Friday, according to a copy of an email message sent to parents and posted by Start Smart BPS.
Members of a BPS crisis team will be at the upper campus on Friday as well to try to help students - and staff.
All students involved in this incident will be subject to consequences from law enforcement and discipline in accordance with BPS polices. We will conduct a thorough investigation into this incident which will inform our immediate response and the development of a longer-term plan to provide support and ensure the safety of the entire Henderson community.
The lower school will open as normal tomorrow.
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Comments
What is it going to take
For BPS to start addressing unacceptable and sometimes violent student behavior to an appropriate level? Both my kids are in BPS, I recently heard students are leaving BPS by the thousands for other school options and at our school the principal didnt even respond to an email I sent to her challenging her to be proactive about bullying in the Schools ;( we are a world class city with a second class school system.
This is what needs to happen..
...tear up the Boston Teacher's Union contract and start over.
Boston Teacher's Union is one of the biggest impediments to improving Boston Public Schools.
- A Boston Public School Volunteer and Parent
Nope
So the people who show up everyday to educate your kids are the problem? NOPE! Dilapidated buildings, mismanagement of funds, lack of home training and general respect are a great start…Behavior and respect start at home
Stopped reading after this...
So the people who show up everyday to educate your kids...
They don't show up everyday...and many are definitely not there to educate the kids.
On a side note: There is a current BPS school that has a temp substitute Spanish teacher..... who doesn't speak Spanish. SMH.
Hmmmm I wonder if constant
Hmmmm I wonder if constant disrespect has anything to do with the teacher shortage?
People don’t go into teaching for the money. This isn’t the 60’s when folks went into teaching for job security. An educators job is never ending - morning, noon, and night- weekends, summers, vacations. Maybe when they all quit you’ll finally GET IT!
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt
But you must be specific and identify the exact issues you see. Go ahead.
Don't take my word for it...
Go spend a week in a BPS elementary school (that's not one of the top 5).
Talk to the principal. Talk to the staff. Observe the way the teachers "teach".
(I guarantee that you will be unimpressed).
...but you have to spend at least a week. Principals are great at putting on a show for a day.
Burden of proof
Should be on the accuser. I'm not refuting your claims, because you haven't made any specific claims. I don't exactly have a week to spare right now, too busy with my day job in education...
Why don't you just answer the question?
You're obviously involved, you've got skin in the game and plenty of opinions. So why do you want someone to go on a week-long field trip that no working adult can do, when you could simply answer the question?
Why don't you take your advice
I guarantee that if you actually did that -- sat in the corner of a classroom for a week and watched* -- you'd be shocked at how much they need to do and how well they do it.
Being a public school teacher at any level is extremely hard.
*If you actually tried hang out in an elementary school for a week just to "observe", you'd be spending a lot of time with people who are neither teachers nor students.
More simplistic answers
To complex problems.
Administrators are in charge of compliance with anti-bullying laws. They are not under that contract.
How does this make sense
18 year BPS high school teacher here. I have seen vicious fights. I have also seen kids make amazing progress. The underlying issue here is there are very few consequences for student behavior. These kids are so coddled and they know it. They push every limit before the school is legally allowed to take action. It's scary and dangerous. How is the teachers union responsible when a 16 year old punches someone who is over 60? Please elaborate.
Coddled, and yet...
20-plus-year clinician in various roles working with kids directly in BPS schools and BPS kids in other settings.
I agree with the no accountability, but at the same time, so much of the approach in BPS is not trauma-informed or neurodiversity-affirmative. Kids are taught with a focus on compliance, rather than understanding their needs and others' needs and learning to problem-solve and self advocate. There's so much ABA focus, which is all about teaching kids compliance. So much of BPS is full of sticker charts and behavior levels.
I would characterize the BPS approach more specifically as infantilization rather than just coddling. Kids aren't held accountable, but they're also not being taught critical thinking and insight-based approaches. It's more of an approach of "we expect you to act the way we said to because we told you so." And sure, a large percentage of kids can do this, but these are generally neurotypical children without an extensive trauma history. All kids can learn and do well when an approach is used that teaches skills rather than compliance (DBT, Ross Greene, etc.)
Administration and the people who run things
Don’t belong to the Union.
Ahem...
If I'm not mistaken, isn't there a "punch-a-teacher" TikTok challenge and this is happening everywhere, not just BPS? (kid should still get max consequences, could have ended this teacher's career/life)
One more easy solution, if this is the case
Re: Punch-a-Teacher TikTok Challenge (Not sure if it's a thing, but sounds like something that could be, seeing 99.9% of the content there is brainless drivel anyway)
Either ban TikTok outright, or make it so you have to be 21 or older to use it. Of course, that would eliminate the vast majority of their userbase, so win-win, I suppose? Of course, neither of these will ever happen so it's a pipe dream.
Also, to the troll who tried to play the union card: No, just no. As others have said, the ones responsible for handling behavioral problems are NOT in the union.
Karl….
This kids have full internet access at the age of 4. You can’t ban anything. (Unless you mean phones in schools then yea, but good luck on that one too)
"Reply All" just did an interesting podcast on that very topic.
Check out the October 28th episode.
TikTok says no...but it sounds like its a thing
A student in Louisiana did a pretty similar thing in October...so did one in Missouri...and South Carolina.
Kinda sounds related.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/10/08/tiktok-teacher-slap-...
Our youth are not well
Twenty-year BPS teacher here, sharing my experiences and my colleagues' anecdotes from a variety of elementary, middle and high schools; the pandemic has taken a huge toll on our students' mental health. Like many industries, our schools are currently understaffed - from teachers to paras, counselors to bus drivers and cafeteria staff- and our youth are feeling vulnerable, depressed, disconnected and straight up miserable. We are trying to support elementary kids having breakdowns day after day and we're chasing kids skipping classes and hanging out in our bathrooms in the upper grades. We've seen more scuffles and fights this year than in years past and we are constantly calling the B.E.S.T. team to support students who are engaging in self harm. BPS put absolutely no effort into planning meaningful ways to support our students when they returned in September; they simply required that all students and staff wear a mask in our school buildings. No lie, that's it. Oh, and we've returned to requiring standardized testing to make school even more unbearable for our emotionally dysregulated students. The youth are not well. There is no excuse for the incident at the Henderson this afternoon, and I hope their students, staff and families are able to find solace within their community as they try to heal from the additional traumas this incident creates. I just hope BPS realizes that we really need to shift our attention away from testing and the pre-pandemic status quo to supporting our students' well-being during these unstable times.
Thank you
Thank you for putting the focus back on the kids who have had the childhoods messed up by the pandemic.
I've heard similar
Even last year when everything was remote a BPS teacher friend of mine said something like, "I'm not worried about the education loss so much, we can work to catch up on that. I'm worried about the psychological and social impact that I'm seeing on screen and worried for where it will end up."
the pandemic has taken a huge
Not the pandemic, but the lockdown. Kids weren't directly affected much by COVID as much as by the reaction to it. Now BPS response to yesterday's incident is closing the entire high school today. That knee jerk reaction is the opposite of what they should do.
Horsefeathers
The reason why kids "weren't directly affected much by COVID" was because of what you laughably term a "lockdown".
BPS
So its okay to punch a teacher out?
yeah man
how dare those teachers ask for protection from people like your kids
They should just teach your kids for free
School Daze
Fights are breaking out daily at Ashmont station when school gets out.
Not saying it’s not a bad
Not saying it’s not a bad thing but that’s nothing new. Remember what Ashmont was like back when it first started being worked on and had boards in the front? I’m not sure if there’s really an answer to things like kids fighting (remember Boston is a city with many active gangs), bullying (although I think kids learning self defense whether boxing or martial arts will help with that), or even students getting violent with teachers. These things will always happen with each generation
Just a reminder
A collection of city councillors wanted to get rid of school police. Hope they have Arroyo and Mejia patrol the hallways to kid the kids safe.
Just a reminder
That the reality of police in schools isn’t as clean and simple as you might think.
The evidence on police presence preventing violence is mixed, having police doesn’t necessarily mean less violence.
On the other hand, having police present does lead to more and more severe punishment, and also more absenteeism and lower graduation rates, particularly among disabled and minority communities.
So, you maybe get a safer school, and you definitely get worse educational outcomes.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/6/23/21299743/police-schools-research
And another report from last week: https://reason.com/2021/10/20/new-research-says-police-in-schools-dont-r...
Full disclosure: I voted for Mejia and Arroyo yesterday because I believe that they know more about this issue than the reactionary “more cops!” crowd.
1- the fact that you show no
1- the fact that you show no concern for Lampron is disturbing.
2- This from the link you posted. "This suggests a tradeoff. “This increase in safety is not free; it is accompanied by a small increase in the probability that students who continue to engage in disruptive and harmful behavior will come into contact with the formal criminal justice system, rather than the principal’s office,” wrote researcher Emily Owens."
Yes. The trade off is consequences for violent behavior. That's not a bad thing.
The schools should function for the kids to learn, not as a baby sitting service for delinquenst.
Didn’t help
There was a cop right there, and the principal still got knocked unconscious
Story updated
With arrest info from BPD.
For all that hand wringing
For all that hand wringing about the pandemic, you do realize that the rest of the civilized world had kids in school learning math and English.
And at the same time
The world went nuts with armed protests, riots, multiple violent assaults about putting a piece of cloth over your pie hole, a violent coup attempt at the capitol. The world did not carry on as usual.
I'm gonna guess...
...that Bubba might have been referring to the world outside the United States. But maybe not?
Don you just like making things up?
https://www.covideducationrecovery.global/maps/education-status/
Including a two point graph
Including a two point graph made by a WGBH intern would make your counterpoint even stronger.
Acting Mayor, Mayor-Elect,
Acting Mayor, Mayor-Elect, commets, action?
Update
According to the police report, the mother of the teenager had threatened the principal Tuesday night.
The attack left the principal with a concussion and fractured/broken ribs.
https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-principal-assaulted-by-student-hende...
Back in the 70s
I attended a suburban school with 99% white students. On a field trip chaperoned bu a dark skin teacher a group of students yelled at the teacher the “get to the back of the bus.” Fortunately we did not escape with impunity. A shameful moment.
A physical assault is of course worse. But blaming a teachers’ union is simplistic and just plain wrong.
What conditions created a girl that would assault someone? What the student did was wrong and she needs correction. But let’s not forget they none of us are born ex nihilo. Same question applies to drug abuse, etc. Human beings as typically not born addicted to dangerous mind altering drugs. The drugs become means deal with suffering, pain, gross frustration, etc.
We can’t reasonably expect violence to not happen when we live in a world where both emotional and physical violence are the norm.
School closed again tomorrow
Student arraigned this afternoon