Student-inflicted injuries to staff in schools: comparing risk between educators and non-educators
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29079578/
Below are selected excerpts
Abstract
Objective: Student-inflicted injury to staff in the educational services sector is a growing concern. Studies on violence have focused on teachers as victims, but less is known about injuries to other employee groups, particularly educational assistants. Inequities may be present, as educational assistants and non-educators may not have the same wage, benefits, training and employment protections available to them as professional educators. We identified risk factors for student-related injury and their characteristics among employees in school districts.
Methods: Workers' compensation data were used to identify incidence and severity of student-related injury.
Results: Over 26% of all injuries were student-related; 8% resulted in lost work time. Special and general education assistants experienced significantly increased risk of injury as compared with educators. Risk differed by age, gender and school district type. Text analyses categorized student-related injury. It revealed injury from students acting out occurred most frequently (45.4%), whereas injuries involving play with students resulted in the highest percentage of lost-time injuries (17.7%) compared with all interaction categories.
Conclusion: Student-inflicted injury to staff occurs frequently and can be severe. Special education and general assistants bear the largest burden of injury compared with educators. A variety of prevention techniques to reduce injury risk and severity, including policy or environmental modifications, may be appropriate. Equal access to risk reduction methods for all staff should be prioritized.
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Investigating Physical Violence Against Classroom and Other School Personnel Using Ohio Workers’ Compensation Data: 2001–2012
This study uses workers’ compensation data to explore the extent, severity, and context of violence-related injuries sustained by classroom (teachers and aides) and other personnel (e.g., administrators, education support specialists, security, custodial and maintenance workers, food workers) in Ohio’s K-12 urban public schools. Approximately 25% of all claims filed were violence-related. . For both classroom and other personnel, the most commonly-sustained injuries resulting from a violent event included contusions; sprains to the neck, back, and upper or lower extremities, and open wounds. Most violence-related injuries were sustained during direct contact with students displaying escalated or aggressive behavior, or during efforts to de-escalate third-party violence.
In 2018, approximately 8.6 million U.S. workers were employed in elementary and secondary schools
Reports published by the National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES) indicate that nonfatal work-related physical violence
is a growing concern for classroom personnel in U.S. schools. During the
2015–2016 academic year, 10% of public school teachers reported being
threatened with injury by a student, and 6% reported being physically
attacked by a student (.
Elementary public school teachers were more likely than secondary
public school teachers to be victimized by a student attack (9% v. 2%; ), a finding that has been reported in previous studies as well
Though NCES limits its occupation-based investigations to teachers’
experiences of physical violence, evidence from other sources suggests
that teachers are at increased risk for physical assault compared to
several other education occupations, such as administrative support,
transportation, security, food service, and janitorial services
Nonfatal physical school violence against classroom personnel is an important public health topic because of its detrimental consequences for school systems. The majority of studies on this topic focus specifically on violence against teachers and have found that victimization increases teachers’ risk for developing depression; anxiety; sleeping difficulties; and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including feelings of fear and helplessness . Victimized teachers may also exhibit poorer job performance and increased job dissatisfaction and burnout This may adversely affect the quality of education students receive Schools may also struggle to retain adequate staffing levels when teachers who experience physical assaults transfer to new schools or exit the profession entirely
This study specifically uses WC data from nine urban school districts. Each of these districts are considered large in size (enrollment of 9,750 or more) and have a high percentage of students (55% or more) who are considered economically disadvantaged because they qualify for free- or reduced-price lunch (i.e., have a family income below 185% of the U.S. federal poverty level), receive public assistance (e.g., SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, SSI, Section 8 housing, or LHEAP), or meet the income guidelines specified for Title I The rationale for focusing on these districts is twofold. First, research suggests that large school size, urban location, and high poverty levels are risk factors for school violence. Second, a stakeholder working group convened by OHBWC recently identified these nine urban districts as strategic safety priorities for Ohio’s school system.
Exploration of the WC data was guided by three research questions:
- 1.What types of injuries are associated with violence against workers in Ohio’s urban public schools?
- 2.How does the probability of injury by violence for classroom personnel compare to the probability of injury by violence for non-classroom personnel?
- 3.What characteristics describe the violent incidents that result in physical injury to classroom and non-classroom workers?
1. What types of injuries are associated with violence against workers in Ohio’s urban public schools?
From January 01, 2001 to December 31, 2012, 25% (4,798) of the 19,508 claims filed by workers in Ohio’s nine priority districts were for violence-related injuries. Classroom personnel filed 71% ( 3,426) of these claims, and other personnel filed the remaining 29% (1,372). Violence-related claims represented 38% of all claims filed by classroom personnel and 13.1% of all claims filed by other personnel.
Injury rate trends for classroom and non-classroom personnel in Ohio urban public schools, July 01, 2001 to June 30, 2012. Violence-related injuries are represented by black fill, and nonviolent injuries are represented by gray fill.
3. What characteristics describe the violent incidents that result in physical injury to classroom and non-classroom workers?
Frequencies for perpetrator intent, situational nature, and special education affiliation for violent incidents that resulted in physical injury to classroom and other school personnel from January 01, 2001 to December 31, 2012. Perpetrator intent to harm was clear or likely in nearly all cases for both classroom (97.4%) and other personnel (98.2%). The most common reasons classroom personnel sustained violence-related injuries were: (1) having direct contact with students displaying escalated or aggressive behavior (40.9%); (2) intervening on or trying to de-escalate a violent event involving two or more other people (34.6%); and (3) administering some other type of student intervention (19.4%). The order was slightly different for other personnel, who were most often injured when intervening in or trying to de-escalate a violent event involving others (48.2%), followed by having direct contact with students displaying escalated or aggressive behavior (27.4%) and administering some other student intervention (20.1%). The victim or perpetrator had a noted affiliation with special education in 12.1% of violent events involving classroom personnel and 3.9% of violent events involving other school personnel.
Violence-Related Injury Prevalence and Types for Classroom and Other Personnel
Approximately 25% of all WC claims reviewed in the current study were filed as a result of violence-related injuries, and nearly all of these stemmed from events in which students were the perpetrators. This finding aligns with , where 26% of WC claims were the result of student-perpetrated injuries. In the current study, injuries sustained by classroom and other personnel were similar. The most common violence-related injuries sustained by both groups were contusions; sprains to the back, neck, and extremities; and open wounds.
Despite the stability of
violence-related injury rates for both groups, the current study found
classroom personnel (teachers and aides) experience violence-related
injuries at a rate nearly twice that of other school personnel. This may
be due, at least in part, to the nature of classroom-based work.
Teachers and aides are required to engage in constant interaction and
relationship building with others, especially students .
Therefore, compared to other school occupation groups, classroom
personnel may have a greater chance of experiencing violence at work
every day simply because their jobs involve more direct contact with
students
Though we collapsed teachers and aides into a single category in the current study due to data limitations, more fine-grained occupational analyses have found that aides – especially special education assistants – are at increased risk of physical assault or injury by a student when compared to general education teachers and other licensed school staff members Aides spend a large portion of their working time engaged in one-on-one interactions with students for the purposes of both instruction and self-care This may leave them at increased risk for violence compared to their licensed teacher counterparts, who spend more time engaging with students at the group level.
Characteristics of Violent Events Against Classroom and Other Personnel
In the current study, perpetrators exhibited clear or likely
intent to harm workers in nearly all instances of violence, suggesting
these events were not accidental. Escalated student behavior was the
most common contextual factor involved in violence-related injuries to
classroom personnel, and it was the second most common factor for
violence-related injuries to other school personnel. This difference may
be due to the fact that general classroom management responsibilities
include preventing inappropriate behaviors from escalating in the
classroom When attempts to redirect or de-escalate inappropriate student behavior
fail, student actions toward classroom personnel may become violent,
regardless of intent.
Of great concern in the current study are the rates at which
third-party violence-related claims were filed by classroom and other
school personnel. More than one-third (34.6%) of classroom personnel and
almost half (48.2%) of other school personnel sustained injuries as a
result of intervening on third-party violence. This finding is notably
higher than the 3.3% of education workers injured while breaking up
fights in .
Though the exact reason for this discrepancy between studies is
unclear, one possible explanation is the differences in school types
included in the two studies. Where Schofield et al. included all
Minnesota school districts (urban and non-urban; public and other) in
their analyses, the current study focused on large urban public school
districts with high poverty rates.
Conclusions
In light of our finding that classroom personnel are twice as likely as other school personnel to be injured as a result of violent victimization at work, we recommend schools and districts with limited resources concentrate their efforts on interventions specifically designed to mitigate physical violence against teachers and aides. Given that most classroom personnel injuries were sustained as the result of students displaying escalated or aggressive behavior or intervening on third-party violence, initiatives that enhance classroom personnel’s capacity to safely manage student behavior may be a particularly salient starting place. It is worth noting here that previous research has identified physical aggression as the most common form of workplace school violence that co-occurs with perceived lack of support from administrators Considering this link, violence prevention initiatives would very likely benefit from the inclusion of specific efforts to improve staff perceptions of administrator support.
This study also provides valuable insights into the utility of WC claims data in studies of physical violence experienced by school personnel. Despite a tendency for workers to under report violent victimization,