Bullying of Teachers Online Worse Than in Past - Maher Writer Berates Victim

Associated Press has reported on student bullying of teachers and administrators, in Christine Armario's "Bullying of teachers more damaging in online era", June 23, 2012.

The article reports that, while the problem has existed for decades, it is worsening in the online age as cyber predator students can taunt teachers, capture the episodes on their cellphones and post video images of the teachers breaking down.

The article gives a particularly offensive incident of students tormenting an upstate New York (Greece, a Rochester suburb) schoolbus monitor, Karen Klein, with sadistic taunts like "You don't have a family because they all killed themselves because they don't want to be near you."

In a number of cases the students seem to have the upper hand. One student harassed a teacher on Facebook. She sued for violation of free speech rights after she was suspended. The American Civil Liberties Union represented her. Armario wrote that, "She settled for $15,000 to cover her legal fees and her suspension was wiped from her record."

A teacher's lawyer said that courts "tend to side more with the students unless you can show dramatic problems."
Read more at the original article.
UPDATES:
An altruistic Toronto, Ontario soul started a fund for Klein, a 68-year old grandmother.
Klein isn't accepting the apologies of the middle school boys that abused her. She isn't pressing charges, either.

And leave it to a callous media figure, Chris Kelly (writer for Real Time with Bill Maher) on Huffington Post, far removed from the struggles of public school employees to blame the victim and say that the boys abuse showed that she wasn't doing her job. -A very familiar barb for those accostomed to administrators' telling teachers that students' disruption and disrespect was something that they were personally responsible for.