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What the!

6 months isn't enough, there's alot more to this story then in the print.

They beat the teacher.

Then they fired her.

Where is the teacher's union in this?

There should be a big civil suit....................

there's alot more to this story then in the print
I agree. Although I was leaning more towards I wonder why this mother felt driven to this point.

You would be surprised sometimes-I sat in a meeting with a parent today, and the principal and team leader, a sturdy lad of 30, sat with me. The father wanted an unkind confrontation with me, and started in on the males instead. Just short of fisticuffs, all because we had disciplined his son for continuous outbursts and disruptions in class. The parents sometimes assume the child is always blameless. The parent left using foul language at the lot of us-the men laughed, but it gave me the shivers for the day.

Teacher found guilty of assault in beating of fellow educator

Dallas: Felony sentence of probation to 10 years in prison expected today



11:12 PM CDT on Wednesday, May 10, 2006

By ROBERT THARP / The Dallas Morning News





Paulette Baines A Dallas schoolteacher who beat and kicked another teacher while a classroom of seventh-grade students watched was convicted Wednesday of assaulting a public servant.

Paulette Baines faces punishment ranging from probation to 10 years in prison for the third-degree felony conviction. District Judge Faith Johnson is expected to sentence her today.

Prosecutors had asked jurors to return a guilty verdict on a more-serious charge of aggravated assault of a public servant, noting that teacher Mary Oliver suffered two broken ribs, a concussion, bruises and damaged disks in her neck at Ms. Baines' hands and feet.

"These people, when they have these types of things happen to them, deserve our support," prosecutor Pat Batchelor said.

Jurors said they wrestled with the legal definition of "serious bodily injury" and could not be sure that an injury to Ms. Oliver's neck was the result of the beating because she reported it more than a month after the attack.

A doctor testified during the trial that pain from such injuries is sometimes not immediately felt.

Ms. Oliver, a seventh-grade science teacher at William B. Travis Academy/Vanguard for the Academically Talented and Gifted in Oak Lawn, testified that the April 2005 attack occurred hours after she had confronted Ms. Baines' daughter and other students for being in a school hallway without permission.

Ms. Baines, who was a teacher at North Dallas High School at the time, showed up during Ms. Oliver's third-period class complaining that she had "embarrassed" her daughter, she said.

When Ms. Oliver refused to discuss the matter during class, Ms. Baines grabbed her by the hair and punched her, witnesses testified. As 12- and 13-year-olds watched, Ms. Baines pulled Ms. Oliver from her chair and kicked her repeatedly.

Ms. Baines was fired after the incident.

Although they returned a guilty verdict on a less-serious charge than what prosecutors had asked, jurors said they did not think the case was any less serious.

Leaving the courthouse Wednesday, jurors said they were shocked by the 15-year veteran teacher's behavior.

"That was the most appalling part – that one teacher attacked another," jury foreman Stuart Barnhill said.

Ms. Baines did not testify in the trial, and her supporters declined to comment Wednesday.

In closing arguments, attorney Jim Barklow did not dispute that Ms. Baines committed the assault but denied that a teacher fits the murky legal definition of "public servant" or that the blows Ms. Oliver suffered amounted to "serious bodily injury."

Ms. Oliver said she was pleased with the verdict.

"My goal was for her to never be in the classroom again, and a felony conviction assures that," she said, adding that she hopes Ms. Baines receives jail time.

"She might have hurt me physically, but emotionally, we have 360 kids in school, and she hurt every one of them," she said.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... a3d5b.html

The defense argued that Oliver’s injuries were not that serious and that she did not qualify as a public servant.



Sometimes I ponder how one can manage to be a defense attorney and still live with ones self.

chonsigirl wrote: When Ms. Oliver refused to discuss the matter during class,


Which is completely appropriate. You never argue in a professional learning environment in front of the students.

The lady should never have even gone to the class during school hours.

This is disturbing to people, and yet it happens all the time in other workplaces. So why is it so bad in a school?

First of all is the emotional trauma to the students. I'm not kidding when I say that students regard teachers in a completely different light than other people.

One elementary teacher told me that her students were shocked once when she had to go to the bathroom during a class. The kids assumed that teachers never went to the bathroom.

When I worked with younger kids early in my career, they were amazed to find out that I did not sleep at the school and actually went home at night.

Secondly, this is shocking because the vast majority of teachers are some of the highest caliber people to be found. They are screened heavily through psychological tests and background checks. Moreover, since the pay is near-poverty level, most teachers are doing the job for reasons that they believe in, they would never do anything to jeopardize what they see as a 'sacred duty."

Since teachers rarely get in trouble with the law, (except for those stupid teachers that sleep with their students) it's always more shocking to see this kind of behavior in people we not only usually don't see acting like this, but people in a position of trust with children.

Teachers are human, however. I, myself, got my start when a teacher punched a kid who was spitting on him and knocked the kid out. He was fired the next day, and I took over his position.

Another outstanding music teacher I knew was fired for choking a kid who had insulted and hit his wife.

it only takes a second to lose your cool, but a teacher cannot afford even that second.

I had a great administrator tell me once, "If there is anything a kid can say to you that will make you lose your temper, don't be a teacher." and he was right. You have to have infinite patience, good training in anger management and leadership, and a serious sense of humor. After all, you are the adult, and they're just kids.

Kids will do anything to make you lose your temper. They consistently try to find the one thing that will hurt you deeply and say it right to your face.

It doesn't work on me, though.

"Mr. Ives, your shoes look like you bought them in Walmart."

"That's because I did! They go with my 1970's haircut!":D

"Mr. Ives, your earring makes you look stupid and gay."

"yes! Isn't it great? This is the only job I could get where I could look this way and not get fired!":wah:

:wah: I hear that WalMart one all the time.

It looks to me as though the breakdown of society in the United States is as bad as it is here in Britain. This sort of violence would never have happened when I was growing up in the 1960s and early 70s.

Six months imprisonment is too light for this offence for a start. Five years would be more appropriate.

Also, when so-called children spit on teachers and use violence on them, those children should be punished like they would have been many decades ago with the cane, or with the birch followed by salt on the back. I call them so-called children because they commit adult crimes and so they should face adult punishment.

Western society has too many liberal bleeding hearts and do-gooders looking after the interests of criminals. Add to this the law industry and its upside down values and that is why there is so much wrong being committed with impunity.

Explorer the eighth wrote: I call them so-called children because they commit adult crimes and so they should face adult punishment.


Bravo, bravo, bravo!!!! :yh_clap :yh_clap