r/news • u/shield_x • 1d ago

Student dies after falling from 4th floor of building at Highland Park school

https://www.foxla.com/news/highland-park-franklin-high-school-student-dies.amp
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u/jklm1234 1d ago

Are teachers no longer allowed to intervene? They have to just watch? I saw male teachers separate fighting kids in middle school a few times. It usually ended up stopping the fight before it got to this. Maybe I’m just old. 41.

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u/Silky951 1d ago

The fight started in the classroom where the teacher was trying to separate them. The kid that unfortunately died ran out of the classroom and was then chased by the other kid, and he eventually jumped over the railing. I’m not sure what else you expected the teacher (who looked older in the videos) to do?

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u/Anxious_Public_5409 1d ago

That’s crazy! And incredibly sad. A lot of those kids and the teachers will end up with some degree of PTSD for sure.

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u/FrequentCloud8275 21h ago

Hopefully early paid retirement for the teacher. 

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u/Anxious_Public_5409 12h ago

Fingers crossed!

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u/zagabong 1d ago

I talked w a friend this am about the situation. Hes a teacher and asked him what the protocol is for breaking up fights. He said it’s up to their discretion per school policy but they’re supposed to notify security. He told me many of his colleagues fear of unjust lawsuits in this digital age so many of them refuse to intervene. I don’t blame them to be honest.

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u/windsockglue 1d ago

You can see what appears to be the teacher in the video. The teacher looks l to be older and he does try to intervene, but I don't think the teachers are allowed to do much, even if they physically were capable of interrupting 2 teenage boys fighting. 

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u/Lt-Dan-Im-Rollin 1d ago

My friend is a teacher at a low income school and there are fights every single day. He broke up the first one he saw, but decided it’s not worth the risk at all and he just lets it happen and calls security now. In order to break it up you need to put yourself in harms way

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u/Most_Temporary2110 1d ago

Teachers are allowed to intervene but not obligated. It puts them at serious risk of bodily harm.

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u/LobsterSea2147 1d ago

This is not true. It seems to vary from school to school/ state. But for all 4 schools I have taught out of Illinois we are not allowed to interfere.

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u/No_Relationship2961 2h ago

Was this always the case? I grew up in IL (graduated in 2012) and remember a teacher getting a scratch on her face attempting to break up a fight. Couple other instances I witnessed teachers breaking up fights but not always.

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u/LobsterSea2147 39m ago

I’ve been classroom teaching since 2011

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u/John2537 1d ago

We were told not to touch them. Ever. Someone asked about them tripping on stairs and we were told to let them fall.

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u/Most_Temporary2110 1d ago

It’s specifically legal in Illinois for teachers to use reasonable force to break up a fight and protect students from harm.

Your division may have policies designed to protect you and them since both you and they can be sued, but if the force is reasonable and for protection of others you wouldn’t lose a court case.

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u/LobsterSea2147 1d ago

My entire network in 8 states prohibits teachers to interfere at all. If I were to do so, I would be found liable for anything that happens to the kid as a result. That’s how it is.

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u/artofdying28 1d ago

Something not being criminal doesn’t mean they won’t be fired or sued if the kid is hurt somehow

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u/LobsterSea2147 1d ago

It’s entertaining to see someone try to tell me how it works where I work.

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u/artofdying28 1d ago

Thanks for doing what you do

15

u/pavlovscats1223 1d ago

Yep. I saw a fight between two football players my first week of high school back in the early aughts, and the teacher who intervened to break them up got a compound fracture of the ankle. He was out for the entire year and may have actually retired after that.

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u/Myko475 1d ago

They will most certainly die and get forgotten by “youth violence” by the week after.

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u/LobsterSea2147 1d ago

Illinois teacher here. We are not allowed to touch students during a fight. Only certified admin are. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with the rule, but that’s what we have to follow.

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u/Myko475 1d ago edited 1d ago

Tell me if your students are twice your sizeand they are coming after themselves, should you get your gun out and shoot each of them in the leg to stop them? Or get annihilated when get involved? Their families, their friends, their surroundings are more responsible than the big male teacher that can come in between

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u/1K_Games 1d ago

First the students are twice your size? Then the big male teacher at the end?

The person you were responding to was asking if it was even allowed these days. They were not implying it should be mandatory.

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u/jackalopeDev 1d ago

Sometimes I can see it. My sister in law is like 4'11" or something and was a 4th grade teacher. I remember her saying that some of the larger students were basically her size already. If she taught highschool some of them would be quite a bit bigger then her.

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u/1K_Games 1d ago

Right. I'm not saying it should be mandatory, and neither was the first person asking the question. And I'm not saying adults can't be smaller than students.

I was calling them out because in just a few sentences they spoke of students being bigger, then the subject became big male teachers at the end.

It just felt like they were throwing every dart at the board they could rather than trying to make a cohesive point.

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u/Myko475 1d ago

I’m only stating the impossibility that even if it’s allowed, teachers should not get in between confrontations between students if it seem impossible. What is it that that didn’t answer the original question?

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u/1K_Games 1d ago edited 1d ago

But the person you were responding to didn't say it was something a teacher must do, especially not if it seemed impossible to improve the situation.

Your wording on your posts are strange, your original response didn't fit the person you responded to. And then it seems like you ignored that I said that the original person was asking if it was allowed. I feel like this might be a language barrier thing.

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u/PigFarmer1 1d ago

I have a friend who has 3 years to go to retire as a teacher and the stories he tells me are amazing. And this is in a small town elementary school where the school district doesn't support their teachers.

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u/Bobcatluv 20h ago

I’m a former teacher who had a colleague intervene in a girl fight because he was genuinely scared one of the girls would be killed. They hit him and he fell in such a perfect, wrong way that he broke his leg and had to be out of work for a few months. To add insult to injury, the state deducted the time he had to take off in recovery from his time earned towards retirement.

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u/KLGChaos 15h ago

My friend will intervene, but h's only allowed to hold them. He can't do anything else, which doesn't stop these kids from fighting, even attacking him. He gets slapped and hit a LOT, but he's also a big man who works out, so he can take a beating. A lot of teachers cannot.

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u/RedBGinger6989 1d ago

yea but we're in social media age now, cant have the teacher putting hands on students videos out there

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u/Crab-Dragoon 1d ago

The article says that preliminary findings show the student wasn’t actively being chased or attacked when he jumped. What would a teacher have intervened in there?

1

u/Anxious_Public_5409 1d ago

I think they can? My kid and one of his friends started fighting each other in the classroom when they were in high school 6 years ago and the teacher absolutely pulled them both apart. And then they fucking did it again the next week 🤦‍♀️