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The Mountain Home Public Schools Board of Education took up an uncomfortable topic at its Feb. 19 meeting, with board member Marsha Partney reading aloud a state law that makes it illegal to verbally abuse school employees and calling for stricter enforcement after a recent incident involving a staff member.
Partney cited Arkansas Code Annotated 6-17-106, which makes it unlawful during school hours for any person to address a public school employee using language calculated to cause a breach of the peace, materially interfere with school operations, or provoke the employee to anger to the extent likely to cause imminent retaliation. A conviction carries a fine of between $100 and $1,500.
“This happens, and it has happened recently,” Partney said. “It is unlawful.”
Partney said she wanted the board on record supporting staff who face that kind of treatment, and called for proper documentation when incidents occur.
“It is clear that no staff member, bus driver, cafeteria worker, or administrator should have to put up with this,” she said. “I would like for us to make sure that the proper recording is done and that this gets handled.”
She said her preference is to allow irate parents to leave and return when tempers have cooled, but made clear the district should not continue absorbing the behavior without consequence.
“When a man curses at a female administrator or teacher or bus driver, that should just not happen,” Partney said. “And I don’t want it to happen anymore. And whatever we have to do to make sure it doesn’t happen, or that they’re paying a fine.”
Board member Scott Booth agreed, and offered a pointed observation about institutional tolerance.
“The behavior you allow becomes the standard you have allowed,” Booth said. “This has become the standard. This is a very easy way to have our teachers’ and our staffs’ back and take care of them.”
Booth also suggested the district post the relevant statute on school doors, similar to signs displayed at medical offices warning that threatening healthcare workers is a felony.
Superintendent Allyson Dewey thanked the board for raising the issue and confirmed a recent incident had occurred.
“We did have a situation over the past couple weeks,” Dewey said. “I appreciate the support of all of you in making sure that our staff are taken care of, because nobody deserves that.”
She noted that administrators frequently step in to intercept abusive callers before they reach teachers, and that staff often absorb mistreatment in the interest of keeping the peace.
“I don’t expect any administrator, teacher, or anyone to take a chewing like that,” she said.
Assistant Principal Mollie Morgan put a personal face on the issue, sharing an incident from her own time in the classroom. Morgan said a husband called the school and became verbally abusive after she refused to allow him to complete his student’s schoolwork for them. The language used during the call was severe enough that Morgan said she did not fully understand some of the words, but a male colleague, identified as Mr. Kincaid, did. Kincaid immediately intervened, warning the caller that police would be at his door if he did not stop and that he would never speak to the teacher that way again.
Morgan said despite the severity of the incident, she would not have pressed charges herself.
“I would not have pressed charges. I just wouldn’t,” she said.
The admission illustrated the central enforcement problem Partney and the board had raised. Without a willing victim, the law has no teeth.
Partney pointed to Safety and Security Coordinator Eddie Helmert, who was present at the meeting, and said the district does its best to respond when incidents occur.
Helmert, a former school resource officer, told the board the practical challenge is that nothing can happen unless the employee who was targeted is willing to press charges.
“We’re there. We support our staff and our secretaries, our admin,” Helmert said. “But the staff has to be willing to press charges against that person, and a lot of times they don’t want to do that. And that’s about what we’ve run into.”
Dewey said it may be that some employees, and some parents, do not realize that verbally abusing a school employee is a matter of law rather than just a policy violation.
“Not realize it is a law,” she said. “We will make sure they know.”
