Mayor Sheila Dixon has called for an emergency meeting next week in response to a series of reports of student-on-teacher assaults in city schools, her spokesman Anthony McCarthy said Friday.

The meeting, prompted by Examiner stories on the plight of Waverly Middle School teacher Julia Gumminger, will include education leaders, representatives from the Baltimore Teachers Union and Baltimore Police department officials.

Gumminger, a 26-year-old art teacher, told The Examiner of two assaults, which forced her out of the classroom because she feared for her safety. Since the March 6 publication of that story, there have been three new reports of student-on-teacher assaults, in addition to several anonymous calls, Teachers Union officials said Friday. Details of those assaults were not released.

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However, James Williams, a parent leader at Dr. Roland N. Patterson Middle School, said that a seventh-grade health teacher was physically assaulted earlier in the week by a female student. That assault required medical attention. Teachers Union school safety chair Pat Ferguson said that, according to incident forms filed in her office, the teacher had been pulled down by her hair from behind and punched in the back. She was taken to Sinai Hospital for back and shoulder injuries.

McCarthy said Dixon, a former elementary school teacher, has reached out to Gumminger personally and that the mayor considers the ongoing assault crisis “a grave, grave issue and an indication of some of things going on in public schools that need to be addressed.”

The Maryland State Department of Education suspended Gumminger’s teaching certification for a year after she quit the Waverly school, but McCarthy said Dixon plans to address that.

McCarthy said Dixon has asked the city police to work with school officers in an effort to stop the violence. Baltimore City's school Police Chief Antonio Williams, who oversees 100 officers, said he had requested more officers in his budget proposal.

rcassie@baltimoreexaminer.com