Two assaults against teachers at Baltimore’s Northeast Middle School last Monday are being investigated as potential gang-initiation rites, highlighting the ongoing problem of student-on-teacher violence in the city’s public school system.

In both incidents, a group of students burst into a class already in session, quickly turned off the lights and knocked the instructors to the ground.

One teacher was reportedly hit with her own cane while on the ground, and according to the Baltimore Teachers Union, was taken to the hospital for treatment on various bruises.

The assaults at Northeast Middle School are by no means isolated incidents.

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Earlier this year, a teacher missed work time because of a concussion after being struck by a student at a Baltimore elementary/middle school. Another teacher at the same school quit because of the threat of violence.

“Everyday in the school system, at least one — probably two or three — teachers are assaulted by students in the Baltimore City Public School System,” said Pat Ferguson, chair of BTU’s school safety committee. “It may be a teacher being thrown up against a wall, it may be a punch or it may just be an arm pushed out of the way, but anytime a student puts their hands on a teacher, I consider that an assault.”

Ferguson said in an April 2005 teacher survey 84 percent said gangs were not a problem, “but that’s all we hear about this year.”

The number of assaults, and the recurrence of assaults on the same teachers, are vastly unreported, according to union officers, social workers and teachers, most of whom did not want their names in print for fear of retribution.

Several complained that principals, vice-principals and administrators intimidate teachers into not filing complaints because they want to keep down the number of suspensions at their school to prevent it from being listed as “persistently dangerous.”

The union encourages members to report assaults, but only a small percentage actually do, Ferguson said.

“We’ve had 25 official complaints filed this year and there are maybe two dozen more that went to the police that I’m aware of,” Ferguson said. “But we’ve also had more than 50 calls on our anonymous reporting hot line. Those teachers are afraid to give their name or even their school because they are afraid they are going to lose their job.”

Ferguson stressed the BTU reports represent “just a trickle” of the total number.

rcassie@baltimoreexaminer.com