NC lawmakers may require schools to report all teacher assaults to improve safety
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- House Bill 775 mandates schools report all teacher assaults and threats to police.
- Legislation follows a 10.8% rise in teacher assaults statewide over one year.
- Critics warn mandatory reporting risks broad enforcement and racial disparities.
North Carolina lawmakers say they want to take a stand for teacher safety by requiring principals to report to law enforcement all assaults and threats on teachers.
The state House overwhelmingly passed a bill on Tuesday that requires schools to notify law enforcement when a student threatens or assaults a teacher — even if there are no serious injuries. House Bill 775 comes at a time of a rising numbers of assaults on teachers and concerns about school safety.
“We’ve all seen it,” said Rep. Brian Biggs, a Randolph County Republican and one of the bill’s primary sponsors. “There’s kids now they’re YouTubing slapping our teachers. They’re YouTubing beating our teachers, and now every assault on a teacher has to be reported to law enforcement.”
Other parts of the bill include requiring schools to do criminal records checks of employees before hiring them. Biggs said the bill will cover the few school districts that don’t do criminal checks now.
State law currently requires schools to only report to law enforcement assaults on teachers resulting in serious injury.
“There are situations where a teacher is assaulted at school, many times it doesn’t make it out of the building,” said Rep. Brian Echevarria, a Cabarrus County Republican. “The principal doesn’t even tell it to the district, so the superintendent is unaware.”
Rep. Julie von Haefen, a Wake County Democrat, was one of only three legislators who voted against the bill.
“This bill’s language has potential risk — although it might have been unintentional — to harm students by exposing them to the criminal justice system unnecessarily,” von Haefen said. “An increased criminalization for our kids does not necessarily improve school safety.
“We trust our principals to run entire schools, and we should trust them to decide when and where a situation really calls for law enforcement involvement.”
The bill now goes to the Senate.
Schools covering up assaults on teachers?
There were 1,642 assaults statewide on school personnel in the 2023-24 school year. That was a 10.8% increase from the 2022-23 school year and a 19.5% increase over the last three years.
Biggs cited incidents such as a viral video from April 2024 showing a high school student slapping a Winston-Salem/Forsyth County teacher in the face.
There have been more recent incidents, including on Sept. 12, when five staff members at East Chapel Hill School were injured while breaking up student fights, The News & Observer previously reported.
Echevarria said he personally knew of two cases where law enforcement wasn’t notified of Cabarrus County teachers who were assaulted in school. He said one teacher had a concussion and another suffered a traumatic brain injury.
“Now the issue I have with that is if that same attack would have happened in a grocery store, law enforcement would have been involved,” Echevarria said. “If the same attack happens at a community event or barbecue, law enforcement would have been involved, and we should not have a space anywhere that someone can be assaulted. Our teachers are under enough stress.”
Echevarria said he trusts law enforcement and district attorneys to decide whether any assaults and threats reported to them merit criminal charges.
Exemptions for students with disabilities
The legislation gives principals discretion not to report threats or assaults that don’t result in personal injury if it involves a student with a disability. To be eligible, the student must have an individualized education program and has one or more of the following:
- Intellectual disability
- Serious emotional disturbance
- Developmental delays
The bill was amended Tuesday by Rep. Zack Hawkins, a Durham Democrat, to include students who have autism spectrum disorder and other health impairments. Hawkins cited how students who have Tourette Syndrome might say something that sounds like a threat but isn’t really one.
“We’re just grateful that the bill sponsor is willing to hear these out and to make sure that as principals and superintendents and law enforcement do their job in our schools, they can have the type of clarity they need to move forward and keep teachers safe and to keep the student population safe,” Hawkins said.
Will bill disproportionately affect students of color?
But von Haefen, the legislator, said the bill’s wording about reporting threats made against teachers is too vague.
“It could be used disproportionately against students of color,” von Haefen said. “We already know in our schools that we have many, many reports and data showing that Black and Latino students are consistently punished more severely than white students. We also know that students with disabilities are punished at a much higher rate.”
Von Haefen also cited how she’s the parent of teenagers who can say emotional things that they may later regret.
“Reporting legitimate violent threats against educators is important and necessary, but the language in this bill is just way too vague and uncertain and it’s overly broad,” von Haefen said. “Mandatory reporting does not allow for discretion for the staff to consider intent or the trauma that the student is going through or the content of that language.”
