Work shouldn’t hurt.
That is the message local leaders have been trying to get across since NYSUT got the Workplace Violence Prevention Act expanded to include public schools in 2023.
According to the legislation, school districts have a responsibility to protect their employees from violence — whether it be violence from co-workers, parents or students. The law requires that all districts perform a risk assessment of their employees’ working conditions, collect data on all violent incidents, and develop effective mitigation measures to prevent future incidents.
“We have a duty to protect our members,” said Joseph Byrne. “People need to feel safe at work.”
Byrne is the president of the Medina Teachers Association and presented on workplace violence prevention at the annual Representative Assembly, where he advised local presidents on how to effectively implement WVP plans in their districts. The first step? Start a union health and safety committee.
In Medina, the TA’s health and safety committee was able to push to be part of the building-level risk assessment, and to review incident reports. “It was important for us to ask questions like, ‘What happened?’ ‘Who handled the incident?’ ‘Were they properly trained?’” said Byrne.
Post-incident response is another vital element of an effective violence prevention program, Byrne said. In Medina, HR checks on the injured member after the incident and enacts any mitigation measures that might be needed in a timely manner. “If something happens in October, we don’t want to wait until May to do that follow-up,” Byrne said.
NYSUT has been conducting WVPA trainings across the state this year. Led by Tricia Geisel, health and safety specialist for NYSUT, and Kelly Fahrenkopf, assistant in research and educational services, the two-hour presentation covers best practices for workplace violence prevention programs.
“It’s been work to get the district to do what they’re supposed to do,” said Jon Weston, executive vice president for the Sachem Central TA. Weston, who sits on the local’s health and safety committee and participated in the NYSUT training, said his members were regularly being slapped, punched, bit, and kicked by students, but data wasn’t being collected until the local union stepped in.
The Sachem TA charged the building reps in the 15 schools with collecting incident reports and launched an education campaign for members about how important it was to put everything in writing.
As a result of their outreach, the Sachem TA recorded more than 100 incidents of violence against members this past year. That, in turn, prompted the district to offer behavior intervention training for all aides and teaching assistants and to renew discussions around PPE. “It forced change in the district,” said Weston.
The union also pioneered contract language that requires the district to provide up to two days of sick leave to injured employees. The paid time serves as a bridge between the time of the injury and when workers compensation kicks in. “Getting that in the contract was huge,” said Weston.
Antonio Madau, vice president of the Batavia TA, said his local helped get a workplace violence prevention program implemented right after the legislation passed in 2023, so he was surprised when administrators were dismissive of member reports.
“They tried to tell me that being bitten by a student wasn’t workplace violence. It was just something that happened,” said Madau.
Madau said he had to keep hammering the issue home and explaining that it didn’t matter whether the incident happened in a high school or elementary school, with an adult or a child, with a student who has an IEP or not — violence is violence. All incidents need to be reported, and provisions need to be made to mitigate the issue.
“That's a benefit for everybody, right? It's a benefit for our members because they're not getting injured on the job anymore. It's a benefit for the employer because their employees feel safe, and it's a benefit for the student because it means we're handling those situations in a better, more effective way,” said Madau.
For more information and resources about Workplace Violence Protection, visit NYSUT’s Resources.