Classes at the Amital state religious school in Petach Tikva will begin two hours late on Thursday, November 5, after a second-grade student violently attacked the school’s assistant principal, the Teachers’ Union announced.
Ravit Giladi-Gatnio, head of the union’s Petach Tikva branch, will meet with the teaching staff from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. Classes will begin at 10:00.
According to the union, the incident began Wednesday when the student entered the school office and started climbing a shelving unit in a way that put him in danger. The assistant principal approached him and tried to calm him down, but he refused to cooperate and ran into the assistant principals’ office in a highly agitated state.
He then attacked her. The union said he threw a keyboard, a megaphone and a large metal stapler at her, kicked her, pinched and scratched her, and grabbed and pulled her shirt. He also whipped her with an electrical cord while cursing at her. Throughout the incident, the union said, the assistant principal stayed calm and kept trying to settle the child down.
The union stressed that this was not an isolated case, saying there have been previous violent incidents at the school involving both students and staff. Teachers there are now in severe distress and feel they cannot continue in a routine where they are repeatedly exposed to physical violence, the union said.
“The series of violent incidents against teaching staff requires us to stop and set a clear boundary,” said Michael Pinto, deputy secretary-general of the Teachers’ Union and head of its professional union division. “Educators cannot continue coming to work when they are exposed to kicks, objects thrown at them and physical attacks.” He said the union would use every tool available to demand an immediate response that guarantees teachers basic personal security at work.
Giladi-Gatnio said the staff had tried again and again to contain and calm the situation, but that responsibility cannot rest on teachers alone. “When the violence repeats and escalates, a systemic solution is required that protects the student, the staff and the rest of the school’s children,” she said, adding that the union would stand by the assistant principal and her colleagues until they can return to a safe working environment.
The attack is the latest in a string of assaults on Israeli educators in recent weeks. Last week, a student at the Vitkin school in Emek Hefer bit a teacher who was trying to break up a fight between two girls, and then attacked the assistant principal who came to help. The union delayed classes there as well, noting that the same student had been physically violent twice before.
About 10 days ago, at the A.D. Gordon elementary school in Kfar Saba, the union halted classes for two hours after a student threw a chair at a classmate and hit his homeroom teacher. According to the union, the same student had previously caused one teacher a concussion and broken two fingers of another.
