Hunter
09/08/25
The Iowa City Community School District has seen a large uptick in aggressive behavior, causing at least two teachers to take leave or resign.
An op-ed in the Corridor Business Journal last week discussed the case of a Coralville Central Elementary teacher who suffered repeated attacks from a former student. In December she was put in a headlock during planning time and was strangled while teaching her first graders.
The student was suspended for a day and the teacher’s door was locked during teaching time for her safety. A third assault occurred in February during an unplanned fire drill, causing the teacher to take leave.
The District has seen an uptick in office discipline referrals, documenting aggressive, violent or disruptive student behaviors. The subcategories range from abusive language to physical aggression with bodily injury to possession of weapons.
The 2023-2024 school year documented over 13,300 discipline referrals, including incidents of physical aggression with injury, with serious bodily injury and others with physical aggression without injury. That’s an increase of 82 percent since the 2021-22 school year. Yet, the district reports that they have zero student expulsions over the past five school years.
The op-ed calls for other teachers to share their stories and fully report the in-school violence to motivate parents and community members to demand the school district, the school board and the state legislature make the schools safe for students and teachers alike.
The full op-ed can be accessed through a link with this story on the KCJJ app and at 1630 KCJJ dot com.
https://corridorbusiness.com/iowa-city-community-school-district-must-protect-our-teachers/