Teacher Safety in Special Education: What Districts Owe You
Teacher safety is not only about lockdowns and building security. For teachers working with students who have significant behavioral needs, the daily risk is being bitten, hit, or injured by a child in crisis. The protection that actually holds up is a written safety plan built into the student's IEP.
Back in the stone ages when I was in elementary school, we had no Special Needs students in our school, so I was completely unaware of the fact that kids were not all the same apart from skin color and/or national heritage.
Where were they?
Where the Special Needs Kids Went
The district in which I grew up and spent every school year between Kindergarten and twelfth grade was located in a western suburb of Detroit. Motown's experience of White Flight caused the suburbs to grow in the years following the Detroit Riots of 1967, which left 43 people dead, 342 injured, 1,400 buildings burned, and 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops called into service to deal with the fray.
Parents in the predominantly white and more affluent suburbs didn't want anything less than the Ozzie and Harriet-style lifestyle where everything was, at the surface level, absolutely perfect.
…and so the kids with Special Needs were shipped to different buildings, and most of us didn't even know they, the buildings or the kids, existed. When we arrived at our neighborhood high school to begin our grades 10-12 experience, the Special Needs students were in a building outside the doors of the main building, still on the campus, but not a part of the day-to-day life of high school and definitely NOT a part of the mainstream. Even then, I hardly knew that these students existed.
What Changed Between Then and Now
There were some kids in our 1970's and very early 1980's classrooms whose names were frequently repeated by the teachers because they were, well, annoying. They were naughty. They talked too much, they didn't follow directions, they basically opted out of listening and doing what they knew to have been right. But everyone knew that if those kids, more often than not boys, did anything even remotely resembling violent behavior or destructive actions, they would be promptly removed from our classroom, hauled to the principal's office, paddled, their mother would be called, and there would probably be consequences following when they arrived at home.
The rate of known incidents for violent or aggressive outbursts during my K-12 experience: zero.
Why?
A variety of reasons, to be certain, but one thing can be said without argument: the level of respect shown to teachers pre-2000 is vastly different than today. From my own classroom experience, I can safely say that 2003 was a point of demarcation. It was at that point that parents switched their thought processes from the teacher being right to the teacher being suspect in their actions. I cannot speak to the why but have often wondered if the generational shift of parents had a role, if the significant fracture of the family, especially in the area where I was working at the time, played a role, or if we were just becoming more hostile as a society. In any case, teachers became the whipping posts, and in many schools and districts across this country, remain as such.
Thankfully, Special Needs kids have become part of the school conversation when for so long, they weren't even a thought. Whether or not the discourse sees everyone in agreement about having Special Needs kids integrated into the general education setting, the good news in that is that THEY FINALLY ARE!
What a Bad Day Actually Looks Like
With the integration of a group of students with very diverse and unique needs comes an intangible and extreme need for compassionate understanding about the quirks and isms which come with kids chock full of quirks and isms. One day may find Lucy acting in a sweet, docile, compliant, and excited manner, ready to learn, but the next day, she comes in agitated and discontent. Because she has expressive language issues, she cannot tell you what is wrong or what happened last night at home or why she feels the way she feels. But with the fleetness of quicksilver, you're going to know she's unhappy because something will trigger a rage, something which did not trigger it yesterday or maybe, in your experience, before. Chairs will fly, desks will turn, items will be thrown, kids will be hit, tables will be cleared, swear words will fly, and you, the teacher, you're going to get punched in the face because Lucy is 13 years old and can pack a wallop, and because you didn't think it would happen, you were not prepared to dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge. Your concern was getting the other kids out of the room and to the safety of another teacher's temporary care. This is Lucy's first rager. The stuff in your classroom and her actions were the replacement for the words which she could not retrieve from her brain to speak so that she could better communicate her feelings, and guess what? It's now a pattern of behavior for Lucy.
You feel like a punching bag. With every outward manifestation of Lucy's anger, you are getting hit.
Your administrator comes to your room. He or she doesn't offer to help clean up. Rather, they ask if you have written her up or ask you, "What are YOU going to do about it? She's Special Ed. She is yours to handle."
Um. Okay…
Meanwhile, you're wiping the blood off your face and grateful you shop at WalMart because your new Just My Size blouse, which cost $9.97 is washable and will probably release the blood stains…and your tooth is kind of wiggly, too, so you'll need to call the dentist after school because you probably don't have a prep time because, well, you know, you're Special Ed.
Insert eye roll here.
I get to talk about this stuff in a very real way. Why do I have such a high sense of entitlement about that fact? Well, for one, I'm older than you. Probably. Another? I've endured this. Still more? Districts won't hire appropriate personnel to best support these kids when it is abundantly clear that my classroom is NOT the Least Restrictive Environment, or safest setting, for the student. Wait, what's that? Are you giving me crap about it? Oh. Okay. Well, here's another: the average Special Education Teacher ASKS for training and support to best help these kids, but guess what? NO ONE WILL SEND US TO TRAINING TO HELP THE KIDS WHO NEED A VERY SPECIALIZED KIND OF SUPPORT!
How Common Is Violence Against Teachers?
Personal stories carry weight, but they don't tell you the scale. The research on teacher safety does. The American Psychological Association's Task Force on Violence Against Educators and School Personnel ran three national surveys between 2019 and 2023, gathering more than 35,000 responses from all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
In the round conducted after COVID-19 restrictions lifted, 80% of teachers reported verbal or threatening aggression from students at least once during the school year, and 56% reported physical violence from students. Physical violence from students had run 42% before the pandemic and dropped to 14% while buildings were closed, then came back higher than it started.
The retention figure is the one districts should be reading. In that same round, 57% of teachers said they were planning to leave the profession because of the violence they'd experienced and the school climate around it. The APA has since published joint recommendations with the National Education Association on what schools should do about it.
Special education teachers absorb more of this than most. Learning Policy Institute analysis of federal Schools and Staffing Survey data put special education turnover roughly 46% higher than elementary turnover. Those departures have many causes: caseload size, paperwork, pay. Physical safety belongs on that list, and it rarely gets named out loud.
Three Teachers, Three Districts, One Answer
Consider for a moment the following scenario which a pal of mine endured some time ago: a kiddo in her self-contained classroom had significant behavior issues which were well documented throughout her previous four years of schooling. Upon entry to my pal's classroom, the honeymoon ended around Day 2 of school when the child took a rather nice bite out of my pal's arm. Months into the school year, some might have wondered if my pal was a drug user given all the bite marks up and down her arms, which could have been mistaken for tracks. I mean, COME ON. Short of wearing leather arm covers, the teacher had to work hard to figure out a way to avoid being bitten and to teach the child NOT to bite. My pal asked The Powers That Be for support and training resources. She asked her peers for strategies. She read. She cried. She Internetted. She did a Functional Behavior Analysis and put a BIP into place. She positively supported. She used negative and positive consequences. She prayed. She cried some more. She laughed. She did pretty much everything she could do on her own. What did she get? No true support. The child continued to feast on her like a turkey leg for the duration of the school year.
Consider this case: a student is a spitter. The FBA and BIP are in place. At one point, the student spits into the mouths of the unsuspecting adults who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Reaction by the district's Special Education Director? The teachers will wear the surgical masks, not the student. The teachers were left to ask themselves if that is the most reasonable solution to the situation, while others wondered whether Workers' Compensation would be paying for their blood tests and medical work-ups after the fact or whether the teachers would have to pay for it themselves.
Consider still another: an experienced special education teacher with 15+ years in the classroom with students identified with severe emotional and behavioral disorders. This person has led in-services and is well respected in her district as being someone who is "excellent" at working with this student population. On one particular day in her classroom, one of her students has an episode where he is angered to the point that he picks up the middle school classroom's desk (the kind with the attached chair) and hurls it at the back of her head as she is turned to pick up her telephone to seek support from the school Resource Officer because the student outweighs her by about 50 pounds. She is knocked unconscious and is in the hospital for a couple of days with complications of a head injury. What did the district do with the student, or for the teacher? The teacher was told that if she did not return to the classroom immediately after being released from medical care, she would lose her job and benefits forthwith. The student remained in class. Her classroom was the only E.B.D. classroom in the district for the age group. This teacher pursued things in a civil suit, which is currently in court.
These are people I know. These are not cases in the newspaper. Every special education teacher has a catalog of stories, sadly, like this, about themselves or another special education teacher they know. Yes, we choose the profession because we want to support kids and help them learn. No, we do not want to be battered, abused, and then ignored by the administrations with whom we work.
When Student Rights and Staff Safety Get Framed as Opposites
In a 2013 article in the Las Vegas Sun, writer Paul Takahashi presents the case of a student who is harassed and bullied so badly by a Special Needs student that the bullied child's parents file a restraining order against the 8-year-old male harasser. Indicating their 7-year-old daughter was threatened with scissors, punched in the stomach, and pushed, the writer reports that other students in the classroom were hit with a book and a lunchbox, and that a teacher was punched and kicked. The article says that the parents attempted to work with the school, but the school was operating under the requirement of a free appropriate public education, which guarantees students with disabilities access to the general curriculum and an education tailored to meet their needs through a document called an Individualized Education Program. The district also indicated they could not disclose any information because of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). It is, if you will, the Education field's version of HIPAA.
The conversation central to this issue, in my mind, is not about the rights of both children to attend the school. It is more about the rights of all children to feel safe in school. ALL children. ALL children AND ADULTS.
The Day My Classroom Came Apart
Without question, teachers want their children to feel safe and be safe, and you know what?? We, teachers, want the same. I promise you, I'd take a bullet for ANY of the students in my care, but the day when one of my students went through my room in a hurricane of hostility and anger, knocking everything over, emptying cabinets and cupboards, destroying the work of other students, cursing and hurling insults, the best thing I could think to do was to have my paraprofessional exit the other students from my classroom, inform the office, and wait for the ONE person on staff who was trained and certified in appropriate holds to keep kids from harming themselves or others to be willing to intervene with this child. As I stood there watching him, making sure he wasn't going to cause things to fall on him or harm him, all I could think was, "What makes a child THIS angry?"
My head began to swirl. Was it only a neurological issue where things misfired and created a trigger that went off inside of his head and caused him to react like this? Was it environmental? Was it a combination? Was he off his medications? Were his medications too much? But then my next thought was, "What about my other kids who now feel less safe?" This child's behavior was nothing new to any of us, sadly. While the intervention strategies we had employed were showing signs of positively impacting him, there were still just GOING TO BE DAYS when things were…like this…and as all of these thoughts were running through my head, I was glad to have been paying attention because a chair soon came heading my way and he was setting about to knock over a bookcase which had been, fortunately, anchored to the wall. Enraged that he could not flip over that bookcase, I promise you, every single item on it came off. Eventually he wore himself out. Eventually my students returned to class. My parapro finished working with them while I went to support the child who by now had calmed down. We went back to the classroom and joined the class in getting things put back to where they belonged.
What the Family Meeting Circle Surfaced
As we worked side-by-side, he asked to apologize to his classmates. After we had spent an hour getting things put back into place, the kids sat in our Family Meeting circle. This is the safe space in which we sit and follow a specific formula: celebration, airing our dirty laundry, compliments, closure. As my mind wondered how the HECK I'd do this, I was grateful as things forged onward in a loving way that only children can foster. It went a little something like this, and I'm not making it up: "I'm glad that no one was hurt." "I'm glad that it ended quickly." "I'm glad it was shorter than last time." "I'm glad we all helped and got things back together." Then, stuff got real: "When a friend (we're not allowed to call people out by name. We can, however, praise by name when good things are done) throws things and swears in my classroom, it scares me." "When a friend cusses, I want to hide." "When a friend rips up my papers and cusses, it makes me think about my daddy. He's in jail. It's like when he lived with us." OUCHIE.
As the kids shared their hearts, it was easy for me to see their expressions, and their words gave them away as they aired their grievances in a way that allowed everyone to maintain dignity but have their say, even the person who caused the fracas that day. You see, what we adults didn't see was that someone had said something to him that he perceived differently than intended. By saying, "When someone said X to me, it made me mad, and so I threw things," it gave me the opportunity to launch into a moment about asking clarifying questions. Well, as best as second, third, and fourth graders can do it. After we were done with our session, the kids then ended it with our compliment/praise time. I started things off by offering praise for having a class that could work together to put things back together so quickly and well. My para offered praise for kids who were quick to forgive. Students then chimed in with other words of praise.
It was truly a feel-good time, but what did not feel good was my face. It had been grazed by a pencil pail as it went sailing by my head mid-tantrum.
What did my administrator do? Nothing. In this case, things settled. There are days in special education that are just this way, and it is what it is. But for those teachers who've endured so much worse, their rights seem to be trampled over by the laws intended to protect the academic rights of kids and their special needs. Hey, no one is more about kids' educational rights than me. What I'm not about is a kid throwing a chair at an adult's head, knocking her out, sending her to the hospital for a few days, then NOTHING being done about it. No mention of school-based or private therapy. No suspension. No meetings with parents. Nothing. Only threats from the school district.
Teachers are already paid crap in the majority of districts, so obviously they are there because they love what they do and want to EDUCATE ALL CHILDREN. Yes, there are occupational hazards. I'm not, for one single minute, suggesting that those hazards are not a part of the job. What I AM suggesting is that teachers need to be considered, treated well in these situations, and given fair treatment, not told they should be back at work one day sooner than their doctor's release date.
The Restraint Debate
There is a raging debate in some states over the use of restraints when students are punching the adults, banging their own heads, or inflicting harm on themselves or others in various ways. Personally, I have never thought of the use of restraints being a productive way to resolve a scenario which is so emotionally hot that adding the forced use of restraints would only intensify an already charged situation.
When a sixth-grade student in a classroom of a building where I once worked was having a meltdown which caused him to pace like a caged animal, the calming words of our amazing special education teacher clearly were not enough. While we waited for mom to arrive and help us to deescalate the situation, without any warning at all, "Charlie" suddenly picked up a desk (with the chair attached) and hurled it at the 6 foot 4 inch tall former college linebacker teacher who was sitting quietly behind his desk, far away from Charlie's line of sight. With the reflexes of a cat, the teacher deflected the airborne desk but as it was flying mid-air, Charlie bolted over the rows of desks in the classroom, by-passed the teachers who were seated in the back of the room (these were teachers in whom he normally found solace and comfort when in crisis, so they were called upon to assist), and ran right out the school door. School policy stopped us from chasing him. Instead, we had to call the police. My heart sank thinking that if the wrong officer arrived, one who did not have a compassionate understanding of students with special needs, this child may have legal issues with which he must deal in addition to the things which occurred in the classroom. As a collective, our hearts sank. Fortunately, his mother saw him run out the door and was able to meet him on the street and later told us that Charlie intended to head for home, a place of safety. It took us months to learn what the trigger was: an anniversary of a negative event in his life. None of us knew of this event, and Mom apologized for not telling us about it, but she had felt that not telling us would give him a fresh start, as this was his first year with us.
Uhh. Well. I see both sides.
What to Do When You're the One Getting Hurt
None of the stories above ended with a teacher getting what she needed. That isn't because nothing can be done. It's because most of us were never taught the machinery, and it doesn't come up in student teaching.
Document every incident in writing, the same day it happens. Not a mental note, not a conversation in the hallway. A dated written account of what happened, who was present, what injuries resulted, and what you asked for afterward. If your district has an incident or injury report form, use it. If it doesn't, email your principal and copy yourself. A pattern of documented incidents is what moves a placement review. A pattern of undocumented ones is a rumor.
Get injuries seen and recorded. An injury sustained at work is generally a workers' compensation matter, though filing deadlines and what counts as a covered injury vary by state and by district. Bites, head injuries, and anything that breaks skin should be seen by a clinician, both for your own health and because a medical record puts a date on the injury that nobody can argue with later.
Find out whether your state or your contract has an assault leave provision. Some states and many collective bargaining agreements provide paid leave for staff injured by a student without drawing down personal sick days. Your union representative will know whether yours does. Ask before you need it, not after.
Put the placement question in writing. If your classroom is not the Least Restrictive Environment for a particular student because that student isn't safe there and neither is anyone else, say so in writing to the IEP team and request a review. LRE is a legal determination the team has to consider, not a preference you're expressing.
Loop in your association. NEA and AFT locals handle assault and injury cases regularly. If your district's answer is that this is yours to handle, that is exactly the point at which you stop handling it by yourself.
Put the Safety Plan in the IEP
As the special education teacher, you are writing the IEP. We are cautious about everything, so why would we not take caution to create a solid emergency plan with the team?
Here's my bottom line: kids with special needs are very unique individuals, and while that is definitely cliché, it is what it is. It's a cliché for a very specific reason, because each child has a very distinct set of needs, some of which can be seen and many of which cannot be seen. Teachers, though, need to be physically safe and cared for by their districts. Safety plans MUST be created and enacted for kids who are in our special education classrooms and on our caseloads. MUST. This is not a facet we should be leaving out of our IEPs. In my state, there is no page for a safety plan, but I promise you, an addendum can always be added for this reason.
There is not an easy answer, but we must all take care of one another in the way best for everyone.
RELATED SPECIAL EDUCATION CONTENT:
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a teacher refuse to work with a student who has injured them?
Not unilaterally, in most districts. What a teacher can do is request an IEP team meeting to review whether the current placement is the Least Restrictive Environment for that student, and document the safety concerns that prompted the request. The team makes the placement decision, not the individual teacher. Specific rights vary by state and by collective bargaining agreement.
What is a student safety plan and where does it belong?
A safety plan sets out the known triggers, the agreed de-escalation steps, who responds, and how the room is cleared if a student becomes unsafe. Many states have no dedicated IEP page for one, but an addendum can generally be attached to the IEP so the plan travels with the student and binds the team rather than living in one teacher's head.
Is an injury caused by a student covered by workers' compensation?
An injury sustained in the course of employment is generally compensable, but eligibility rules, filing deadlines, and what counts as a reportable injury differ by state. Report it through your district's process the same day, get the injury documented by a clinician, and ask your union representative about your state's specific requirements.
Does a student's IEP prevent the school from responding to violent behavior?
No. Federal law protects a student's right to a free appropriate public education, and it also allows for discipline, functional behavior assessments, behavior intervention plans, and placement changes through the IEP process. A district that says its hands are tied is usually describing a choice it has made rather than a legal limit.
- Teacher safety is a documented national problem - the APA Task Force found 56% of teachers reported physical violence from students in the year after COVID-19 restrictions lifted, and 57% said they were planning to leave the profession over it.
- Write everything down the same day - dated incident reports are what move a placement review, and undocumented incidents carry no weight when a district decides whether to act.
- The safety plan belongs in the IEP - most states have no dedicated page for one, but an addendum attaches it to the student rather than leaving it in a single teacher's memory.
- LRE cuts both ways - if a placement isn't safe for the student or for anyone else in the room, the IEP team is obligated to consider that, and the request has to be made in writing.
- You don't have to handle it alone - NEA and AFT locals work assault and injury cases regularly, and many contracts include assault leave that doesn't draw down sick days.
Most of what makes this job survivable is training nobody sends you to: de-escalation, behavior assessment, crisis response. The special education programs listed on this page include online and hybrid options built for teachers already working a full caseload, and several lead to the endorsements districts are short of right now.
- The Pros and Cons of Being a Principal: An Honest Look - July 29, 2021
- Special Needs Prom: How One Student Led His School’s Grand March - April 20, 2021
- Behavior Management Training for Teachers: What to Ask For - October 9, 2020
