Teacher: School assault incident was taken lightly By SCOTT DAUGHERTY, Staff Writer July 27, 2005 A misunderstanding between a summer school teacher and her principal delayed the investigation by several days of an assault she says she suffered at the hands of two students. When Tina Horton told Summer School Principal John France of the assault Friday at Arundel Middle School, she said he only verbally reprimanded the boys. Mrs. Horton wasn't hurt, and the boys have since been pulled from their classes on Monday and face possible expulsion. No criminal charges have been filed against the boys, but police are investigating. Mr. France said he blamed bad communication for the initial mix-up. "It was not totally explained on Friday," said Mr. France. He said he now understands the seriousness of the incident. "I just needed to have the facts explained." Maneka Wade, spokesman for the school district, said the Board of Education is investigating the attack, but not Mr. France. She refused to comment about the investigation. Mrs. Horton said the two boys were removed from class Monday and officially withdrawn from summer school yesterday. "The board said it was grounds for expulsion," she said. While the school's disciplinary policy seems to be working in this case now, Mrs. Horton said she was at first surprised by the delay in dealing with the boys' actions. "I was shocked," said Mrs. Horton, 31, a language arts teacher at MacArthur Middle School for the last two years. Unhappy with how it was handled, she reported the incident to the Board of Education and to police. "I felt like there wasn't any consequence. … We know as teachers we can't touch the students." According to Mrs. Horton, she was walking down a hall at about 9:45 a.m. when a ninth-grade boy, 15, she knew from last year's summer school slapped her in the stomach with the back of his hand. Stressing that was not appropriate behavior, the 5 feet 1 inch tall woman told the 5 feet 8 inch boy to follow her back to her classroom so they could talk. However, on their way there, another ninth-grader, 14, whom she knew from an outside tae kwon do class, grabbed her wrist, held it behind her back for several seconds, and pushed her into the boys' restroom. "They said they were only playing," Mrs. Horton said. Not finding it funny, Mrs. Horton immediately walked the boys to the principal's office and told Principal France they had touched her inappropriately. She did not explain what exactly happened though. "I had to get back to my class," she said, not realizing that she needed to say more than that to get a response. "If I have to walk kids down to the principal's office, it's pretty serious." She said she expected the principal to question the boys and take appropriate action. Instead, she said he told the boys that placing hands on staff would not be tolerated and let them go. "What does that teach the students? That it's OK?" she asked rhetorically. Although she had not heard about the incident yesterday afternoon, Sheila Finlayson, president of the Teachers Association, also questioned the school's handling of the incident. "I hope that our school system will step up so that this behavior is discouraged," she said. There are 465 students from seven middle schools and four high schools enrolled in summer school at Arundel Middle School, with 1,545 enrolled in summer classes countywide. Mrs. Horton doesn't hold Principal France's actions against him. "He's a great teacher and a great guy," she said, explaining he was her department chair at MacArthur Middle School. "He knows what he's doing." Although the first time she reported it, this was actually the second time the boy slapped Mrs. Horton's stomach. She said she let it pass when he did it the first week of summer school - even though she didn't know what it meant - but stopped him this time to make sure it didn't keep happening. Mrs. Horton, who will be teaching sixth grade language arts next year at Lansdowne Middle School this Fall, said she came away from the incident physically unscathed, but will be more cautious in the future. "Maybe I'm not going to say 'hi' to every student in the hall anymore," she said. http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2005/07_27-29/TOP Back To Guvment Skool Page 7 COPYRIGHT "DUHMAG.COM" 2005