Violent Student Behaviors, Unresponsive Admin

Posting this for a friend of mine. They work in a right-to-work state where there is no teacher union, but they’re a member of an organization for teachers and run by teachers and helps provide legal assistance.

My friend is an elementary ID Mod teacher and has one student who has had a past history of being extremely violent the past two years. We’ll call them L. It’s gotten worse this year, to the point where L is going after other students and my friend spends all day staying in between L and others in the class to protect them. Because of this, L is attacking my friend. They’re literally coming home with bruises, cuts, and having their hair pulled from their head. L has also physically taken glasses off the face of their aides and has had similar violent behaviors with them.

My friend has called for admin support almost daily for the past two months. This week, admin has been refusing to come and help. Today specifically, they had their hair pulled by the student 5 times and my friend told admin that they don’t know if they can make it to the end of the year. No response.

L’s IEP and BIP have been followed to the letter, every accommodation has been followed and used daily, every intervention has been followed. The school psych came in and observed and said they’ve never seen such an extreme case in their 20+ years in education.

My friend is saying they can’t be a teacher because of the constant fight-or-flight when it comes to managing L. They’re constantly in a stressed state of panic and can’t teach the other students because of L. To me, with admin refusing to come when called for assistance multiple times and L causing the other students and adults in the room visible, physical harm, it sounds like admin is creating an unsafe work environment. Again, right to work state with no union, but they’re a member of a teacher organization that will help with legal assistance. Does my friend have a foot to stand on? I’ve told them to call the organization to help, and maybe even a lawyer, but they’re not really sure what to do outside of outright leaving the classroom.

Thank you all for reading this long post on the night before a full moon! Best of luck to everyone as we finish this stretch before Christmas break!