A second-grade student repeatedly assaulted a teacher in a Queens classroom, according to a teacher.
Cathleen DeGarmo has filed a $2 million lawsuit against the city Department of Education, alleging that the government failed to protect her at least three times in the second half of 2021 from a violent student at elementary-middle school P4 in Fresh Meadows.
The claimed assaults occurred in September 2021 and twice in November of the following year, leaving the instructor with “serious” injuries, including rips in both shoulders.
According to court documents, in one of the events, the student began scratching and head-butting DeGarmo in the chest and shoulders. In another, the pupil hit the instructor many times.
The 58-year-old special education instructor DeGarmo argues that the DOE never informed her that the kid had a history of violence and disruptive behavior.
Following the occurrences, she accuses the school of neglecting to oversee the unnamed kid or remove him from the school’s special education program.
The Department of Education does not maintain a database of assaults on teachers.
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Additionally, the complaint accuses the school of carelessness because it does not equip instructors with assistants or aides who might help maintain classroom safety.
The complaint was filed in Queens Supreme Court on Monday, but neither the Department of Education nor DeGarmo have commented on it.
The Department of Education does not maintain public data on teacher attacks, but the NYPD has reported that at least 52 school safety agents have been hurt by students so far this school year, with more than half of them requiring hospitalization.
According to the NYPD, 58 school safety agents were hurt by student wrongdoing in 2012, and 42 of them were hospitalized.
»Lawsuit alleges that a second-grade New York City teacher was repeatedly beaten by a student«