CORSICANA, Texas (KWTX/Gray News) – A second educator at a school in Texas was injured during an attack by a student less than a year after the assistant principal lost her eye to a similar attack.
Police are investigating the latest attack at Collins Intermediate School in the Corsicana Independent School District that happened last week.
Carol Tidwell, a paraprofessional, said an agitated student from her fifth and sixth grade special education class threw a chair at her.
Tidwell said she fell while she tried to dodge the chair, breaking her wrist.
“The chair hit the floor, and it came rolling at me, and I went a little bit faster, and I tripped. When I went down, I broke my left wrist,” she said.
Tidwell is concerned about the safety of educators in the classroom, saying there is not much they are allowed to do when it comes to violent students.
“We are not allowed to restrain them, we can’t touch them, so no, basically we can’t do nothing,” Tidwell said.
She continued, “You’re basically just standing there, taking the abuse, until somebody else gets in to help you.”
She is frustrated because she said the school has yet to do anything to protect teachers.
“I was just told you’d be on workman’s comp and they would take care of the problem, but the problem has been there since I have been there, and they haven’t done anything yet, so we’ll see,” Tidwell said.
Tidwell said she has been working in the district for less than a year.
The school district said the situation was resolved and learning resumed quickly. Tidwell, however, said she wants to see change that will protect educators when students are aggressive.
“I just want them to do what’s right. Take care of the problem. I understand you can’t do anything with this child… he’s a minor with special needs, I get it, but at least try and make it safer for us, who are trying to help them,” Tidwell said.
Collins Intermediate School is the same school where Assistant Principal Candra Rogers was brutally attacked by a student last fall.
In that attack, a special needs student threw two chairs and a hanger at Rogers. The hanger caught her in the left eye, pulling it out of its socket.
She was permanently blinded in that eye, and Rogers had to have her eye surgically removed.
The district said it cannot comment further on the latest attack because it is an ongoing investigation.
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