Teacher Suing Because Violent Student Wasn't Expelled

By Margaret Lyons in News on Jul 31, 2008 5:40PM

A special education teacher in Naperville is suing the school district because she says administrators let a violent child stay in school despite repeated dangerous behaviour. Paula Jackson alleges in her suit that the student eventually seriously injured her.

She was first introduced to the student on the first day of the 2005-06 school year when the child got out of his mother's car and began to punch, kick and bite her outside the school, her suit contends. The two had never met before, it added.

That same year, the child, then a second-grader, punched his regular teacher, who was pregnant, in the stomach, the suit said. He also punched another student in the face, put Jackson's arm in a sling, injured her back, and threatened to murder both her and his own parents, the suit alleges.

In another incident, the student knocked Jackson over, according to the suit. The student has racked up 150 "documented incidents of violence or aggression against faculty or students," but district lawyers recommended the student stay at White Eagle Elementary School rather than transfer him to a therapeutic school. [Daily Herald]