Is the student-beating teacher being used as scapegoat?

On April 29^th Sheri Lynn Davis attacked a student in her class, the footage has now gone viral on the internet and shows an incident that seems to represent a complete breakdown of the system. In the video the 13-year-old student is seen backed into a corner of the room with Davis standing before him in a position indicative of an imminent attack, the boy cowers down at which point the beating begins.

The video has sparked outrage in the Houston community and especially among parents whose children attend the school, “my son’s starting at this school soon,” commented one reader on the forums of a Houston news website, “now I don’t want to send him”. Another reader commented that the teacher must have anger issues and on one of the You Tube pages where the video is displayed there has been almost unanimous condemnation of the teacher’s actions.

Indeed it is outrageous and Davis acknowledges this herself at a recent press conference for Houston news providers where she said “I am without excuse for my actions” and offered an apology to the kids in the class who witnessed the beating, as well as the mother of the child involved.

Alesha Johnson, the child’s mother has filed a lawsuit against the school and Davis and was not receptive of the apology.

“I don't even beat on my son, so what makes you think you can?” she demanded of Davis.

But there is something else troubling about the whole incident, the question of how it happened in the first place. A teacher without any previous problems such as this to do with her career, does not just lash out at a student for no reason.

Sheri Davis is not a psychopath, and no evidence has suggested she is, so she would not act in such an irrational manner without contributing factors. That is not to say her actions were justified, no amount of taunting or bad behaviour could condone such an attack, but a school environment is meant to be a secure and controlled one, and statements by Davis’ lawyer have suggested the environment at Jamie’s House was anything but secure and controlled.

Statements made by the child who was attacked are also concerning. He alleged to Houston news provider Fox 26 that while he was being beaten there were other teachers in the room, watching and doing nothing. The school has confirmed that there was at least one other teacher in the classroom at the time and are investigating why that teacher did not intervene.

In the video footage, one can also hear the students in the classroom laughing, apparently unconcerned by the violence being displayed. That in itself is worrying, suggesting that violence in the classroom at Jamie’s House Charter School is part and parcel of their day.

Indeed, in the minutes before the incident, Sheri Davis had left her class to break up a fight in the hallway. While out of the classroom she said she heard the door shut and lock, at which point she became “panicked” because of a girl in the class with “special needs”.

This suggests that Davis’ first thought was that something sinister would befall the girl in the classroom, which would not be a teacher’s first reaction unless violence and security failings were a normal part of the teaching environment.

"There is a fundamental lack of security, of support and staffing for the teachers to provide a safe environment for these kids to learn in,” said Chip Lewis, Davis’ attorney, who added he was not trying to excuse her actions, but rather shed light on them.

Houston news provider, the Houston Chronicle, has also revealed that Davis did not have a teaching certificate, but also pointed out that Texas law only requires educators to be certified if they are involved in areas of bilingual or special education. There was a girl with special education needs in Davis’ class, though.

The school is primarily for emotionally troubled children and children from neglected backgrounds. This makes Davis’ actions all the more shocking, but also raises the issue of how the complex needs of so many children are met.

Ollie Hilliard, the founder and superintendant of the school, has, according to the Houston Chronicle, been involved in the running of another facility to troubled children that was shut down by the Texas Department of Family and Protective services because it failed to meet minimum standards for the safety of the children.

“The revocation of the license is based on violations which pose a risk to the health and safety of children,” reads a 2002 letter sent to Hilliard from a licensing administrator to inform her of the suspension of the license to run the facility.

The Texas Education Agency, which is conducting its own investigation into the incident, said they had not known about the shutting down of a previous facility run by Hilliard.

“It would be nice to have known,” a spokesperson for the agency said.

In addition, Hilliard’s daughter, Jamie Babineaux, ran a centre that provided temporary shelter for foster children and was shut down in 2006 by the Department of Family and Protective services for unsanitary conditions and poor record keeping. Babineaux is an assistant superintendant at Jamie’s House Charter School where the incident took place.

When approached by Houston news media about the wider situation of security and safety at the school, the response was defensive.

“The school did not cause her to do this,” said a spokeswoman for Jamie’s House Charter School. “The video speaks for itself.”

Indeed it does, but it shows only a snapshot of a situation, a minute or so that might have been the climax of weeks or even months of systems failures that ultimately led to a complete breakdown of procedure and professionalism in the classroom.

Sheri Davis’ treatment of the 13-year-old student cannot be justified, but further investigation should be made into the school itself and the environment maintained by school officials in order to find an explanation for what happened in order to prevent it happening again.