At Tuesday's school board meeting, several special needs teachers called for the change.
SAN ANTONIO — Special education teachers flooded a Northside Independent School District meeting Tuesday to complain to the school board about violence in their classrooms.
The incident occurred just one week after a Northside ISD educator died from severe injuries allegedly sustained during an interaction with a special needs student.
Alfredo Jimenez was known as “Mr. Jimenez.” Fred. ” The beloved teacher had worked in the district since 2014.
On February 7, Fred reportedly fell after an encounter with a student. He was taken to a hospital, where he died 10 days later, his family said. Fred's son told KENS 5 that the 73-year-old was discussing his retirement with his boss the day he was injured.
“When I saw Fred on the news, it broke my heart,” the teacher told the school board. “Not only have I worked with him and had a lot of fun, but I've also been attacked. You can see the scars — just like all the teachers here. The biggest scar is from my sternum to my pubic bone. That's because the student hit me so many times. Three days later, I'm in the hospital emergency room, waiting for an ambulance, thinking about what the kid did to me. I am taken to another hospital's emergency room for a 4-hour exploratory surgery to investigate internal bleeding!”
Another special education teacher said, “I had to go out and buy gloves so I didn't get any more cuts on my hands. I had to go buy a face shield so I didn't get any more cuts on my face.” It didn't happen,” he said.
A third special education teacher said, “I'm not a military member. I never expected to put myself in danger. So it's up to you to do what you can to keep your teachers safe.” We have safe children because we have good teachers. I take this very seriously. I'm not the kind of person who comes to the board and speaks. I've never done that before. But I couldn't keep quiet. I knew.'' “Fred, he was important. It's up to you to support us.''
Teachers asked the district to hire more support staff and raise salaries to retain these employees. They also accused Northside ISD of looking at the number of students per teacher and not taking into account the severity of cognitive problems that particular students have.
Board members said they had “heard the concerns” but could not address them because they were not on the agenda.
