J.C. Bowman of Professional Educators of Tennessee Discusses the Growing Trend of Teacher Abuse and Assault

Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the Executive Director & CEO of Professional Educators of Tennessee, J.C. Bowman in-studio to address the growing trend of teacher assault and student aggression.

Leahy: In-studio, our good friend for a long time.

Bowman: Yes.

Leahy: J.C. Bowman is the president of Professional Educators of Tennessee on the web at protn.org. There’s something that is very concerning, a change in behavior of kids. They are becoming aggressively violent towards teachers. There’s a story at this sort of center-Left education publication called The 74.

It just came out today. A third of teachers faced abuse and threats last year. Researchers say behavior has likely gotten worse.

So what’s the story here in Tennessee on students assaulting teachers? And what do school administrations do to protect teachers?

Bowman: It depends. Some schools handle it well. I would give credit to Williamson County. They’ve had some issues we’ve dealt with and they’ve done a good job. We’ve seen some outlying areas that’s been horrendous.

We’ve had one case in particular that really concerned me where there was a teacher was just sitting there and they had  to step out in their classroom after a class change, and they stepped outside their classroom and she was sexually assaulted by a student. And the administration wanted to call it horseplay.

Leahy: And what became of that incident?

Bowman: Well, ultimately, she had to take the student to court. She took it to the Sheriff’s Department.

Leahy: What happened?

Bowman: And the child was charged with a felony initially, he plea-bargained down to misdemeanor.

Leahy: Is this student still in that school?

Bowman: No, but initially the child was retained in the class.

Leahy: In that school, administration did not back the teacher up?

Bowman: No, they did not.

Leahy: How prevalent is that?

Bowman: That is very prevalent. They want to keep their numbers high. Graduation rates are very high. You have to keep that, and you want to keep your suspensions low.

Leahy: This is kind of a phony manipulation of data, isn’t it?

Bowman: You know what? Let the numbers fall where they lie. I’d rather come back and explain to you and say, look, we didn’t graduate but 90 percent of kids, 10 percent of kids didn’t graduate because they couldn’t read.

Leahy: When did it start becoming a problem that students became aggressive and violent towards teachers?

Bowman: That has been ongoing. It’s been escalating and it’s gone up. When they came back from COVID, it has just been out of control.

Leahy: Why is that, J.C.?

Bowman: I think keeping kids, particularly in some of the areas, completely out of social interaction, they don’t know how to behave.

I mean, I watched some of the online classes. We see some of the things that didn’t, where students didn’t even know how to behave online.

Leahy: So it’s gotten worse. Going online has sort of destroyed those patterns of disciplinary behavior.

Bowman: And there’s nobody to answer to at home. You’ve got a whole thing coming together at one time. It’s accumulating. And what has happened is our teachers are bearing the brunt of it.

And I tell people all the time it’s okay to be critical of public schools. You and I have discussions about that all the time. I think it’s fine. We get better when we talk about it. I don’t think you hide it. But on the other hand, I think our teachers …

Leahy: You are such an optimist, J.C. (Bowman chuckles)

Bowman: I always hope that we can get better.

Leahy: I know.

Bowman: But you see that our teachers take the brunt of it on both sides and they don’t feel supported. The numbers are saying a lot of them are leaving, and they are not coming back.

Leahy: The other thing, too, is when you look at the teaching situation, even look at K through 12 public schools, from what I can tell, I think the teachers that get paid the most are teachers in the independent school districts in the country, probably independent school districts in the North Dallas area. Their starting salaries are like $60 [thousand]. The starting salary in Tennessee is what?

Bowman: $37,000. Correction worker $44,000.

Leahy: So again, these are, I would say, generally speaking, I believe that teachers are underpaid dramatically in Tennessee, asterisk.

My view also is the K12 public school system, as it’s currently organized, is an unsalvagable disaster, and we should blow it up and start over from the beginning. That’s my view. You have, I think, probably a different view.

Bowman: Well, yes and no, but I think one of the things we did in Florida was we completely rewrote the school code.

Leahy: So you worked in Florida. Yes. And you have a doctorate in education, is that right?

Bowman: Public policy.

Leahy: Public policy, but in the education arena. What has the Tennessee General Assembly done? What legislation has passed recently to protect teachers in the classroom from abuse by students?

Bowman: Senator Joey Hensley, Representative Scott Cepicky.

Leahy: So, Joey Hensley, who’s from, I think he’s from Maury County area.

Bowman: Hohenwald.

Leahy: So he and Scott Cepicky have introduced two types?

Bowman: They passed last year the Student Discipline Act. Okay.

Leahy: What does that mean and how has it been implemented?

Bowman: Well, it took effect in January. So what ends up happening is that the child can be removed for repeated behavior. There’s a process put in place.

Leahy: How effective has that been at limiting the abuse of teachers by students?

Bowman: On abuse, it hasn’t been. It’s untested. I mean, it just took effect on January 1st. And then the second thing we wanted to do is deal with the teacher assault.

Leahy: Literally assault.

Bowman: Literally assault. And like I said, I shared a photo with you of a teacher just recently that was choked out by a student.

Leahy: Because nothing says I’m open to learning like choking out my teacher.

Bowman: And I mean, it is ongoing. It is escalating. It’s getting worse. And some administrators and I understand you don’t want to charge a juvenile with an adult crime. I get that. But we’ve got to do more to protect our teachers.

If not, there’s going to be people who choose not to go into teaching simply because they’re going to be assaulted. And that’s the reason why you don’t go to be a nurse or a police officer or a fireman or a first responder to get beat up.

You do that because you want to help people Most teachers really believe it’s a calling. They want to go there and they want to teach. They want to educate children.

Leahy: This is from the The 74 story that was published this morning. Recent reports from district leaders and professional organizations suggest schools are now seeing even more defiant and aggressive acts from students, and that teachers aren’t waiting until the year is over to walk away.

‘The fact that many schools were hybrid or online during the time of the survey makes these rates even more concerning. Not only are schools operating in-person, but the effects of the pandemic are also extensive in terms of lost loved ones, lost learning, health issues, and the stresses related to COVID-19. That’s Susan McMahon, who is associate dean at DePaul University.

Bowman: Yes, she’s a good writer. Let me throw one at you here in Metro Nashville. The guy testified in 2020. Now, he’s passed away. In 2020, he had his jaw broken. He went to the hospital, but they tried to set the man on fire.

Leahy: This is a teacher?

Bowman: This is a teacher. By the time he got back out of the hospital and recovery, the kid was already back in the classroom.

Leahy: And did this fellow pass away from his injuries?

Bowman: No, he passed away from COVID.

Leahy: I don’t think the injuries helped.

Bowman: No, certainly not. But again, that is what is going on out there. And so this has been an escalating problem, and it starts with I tell people. I mean, graduation rates are nice. There’s something, they’re a benchmark. We have to look at them.

Leahy: Back to this business of being credentialed as a high school graduate. If you’ve got a diploma and you can’t read and write, that credential means nothing.

Bowman: No, it doesn’t.

To learn more about Professional Educators of Tennessee visit them on the web at proedtn.org

Listen to the full interview:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.