Fifty teachers and staff have quit one Florida school district in just two years
Misty Severi
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Students in a Florida school district have gone wild, driving more than 50 school teachers and bus drivers to leave the school district over the span of two years.
One school teacher in the Brevard County School District, the 10th largest in the state, said that well-behaved students and teachers are frightened every morning to go to the school.
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“On an everyday basis, I am deflecting being attacked, scratched, headbutted, pushed, hit. I’ve had my hair pulled and pulled down to the ground. I’ve had my throat gone for on multiple occasions. It’s on an everyday basis right now. … I have students who are afraid every day in the classroom. It’s just not fair to them. That’s what hurts my heart the most,” Alicia Kelderhouse, a teacher, said at a Thursday district meeting.
Other educators detailed horrors in the classroom, such as students openly engaging in sex acts, getting hit with tape dispensers, or being bitten by students. One teacher even had to remove all furniture from the classroom on multiple occasions because students would throw it around the room or at each other. Sexual misconduct, targeted spitting, theft, violence, drug use, and property destruction were also listed as problems teachers faced in the school.
Staffers additionally complained that the COVID-19 pandemic had made the mistreatment even worse, but that the behavioral problems began before the pandemic.
“The pandemic was an accelerant to a fire that was already raging,” one unnamed staffer said, according to the New York Post.
Aside from the violence and illegal behavior, students were also addicted to using their cellphones in classrooms, teachers testified. Students would check their phones hundreds of times a day, keep earbuds in their ears during a lecture, and disrespect teachers by responding to a text message before answering questions when called on, the teachers detailed.
Parents, however, have argued that the school has treated black students unfairly. Parents say that the black students are given more detention time than students of other races and that diversity should be included in any new behavioral codes. Another parent advocated that students who are violent should be removed from classrooms, regardless of color.
“If you are throwing a chair in a classroom, you do not belong there. I’m sorry. If you can’t behave, that’s not my child’s fault. My child’s education should not be hindered because that child doesn’t know how to behave. And by that child, I don’t mean black, white, Hispanic, or any other thing. I mean the child who wasn’t taught how to behave,” the parent said.
The school district is considering frameworks for new behavioral codes and disciplinary actions and will hold future meetings to discuss the problem.
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Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey has also vowed to intervene by helping crack down on the illegal behavior in a video recorded in front of the county jail last month. Ivey said that students are unruly because they no longer fear consequences, forcing teachers to leave as a result.