Fear retribution for reporting incidents.
Houston ISD teachers say they're sick of verbal and sometimes physical abuse, and they want the district to lend them a helping hand. They're asking the school board to include language in the district's anti-bullying policy which includes staff.
Teacher and union representative Joanna Pasternak says she's lost count of the number of threats made by students.
"We've had students who have threatened that they were going to shoot teachers, threaten to bring a gun," says Pasternak. "These are elementary schools all the way up to high school.
But union president Gayle Fallon says school administrators are guilty as well.
"Publicly humiliating them, demeaning language, swearing at them, threatening their evaluation," says Fallon. "We had one who had several pregnant teachers on campus who stood up and ridiculed them for not planning their pregnancies better."
A recent survey put out by the Houston Federation of Teachers revealed many are too afraid to speak up, fearing they may receive a poor evaluation or be fired.
Pasternak says administrators also refuse to discipline students.
"I have a grievance where the teacher was assaulted, punched with fist by a student, and the teacher had to harass the school to let the officer write a citation," she says. "And then they only wrote a citation for school disruption."
HISD officials insist the district will look into any specific issue reported to them.
Fallon disagrees, saying "We used to joke that before the end of October you couldn't get a mass murderer off campus, because you have to wait until you hit that date when they get their attendance figure, and they get paid for their average daily attendance."
