District ATTACKS Our Union President: Attempts to Discharge Him

Should Not Have Come To Teacher/Student Fight
By R. Braiden Trapp (RIO GRANDE SUN EDITORIAL) Published: Thursday, May 19, 2011 10:06 AM MDT

The punch. That’s what is on students’ minds at Española Valley High School as they eye the homestretch of graduation and summer vacation.

When high school science teacher John Reese had enough of Sonny Romero’s disrespectful attitude and inability to follow simple directions, he called security. Then it escalated into Romero getting doused with a garden hose, maybe someone was pushed, a galvanized pipe was allegedly swung or poked at Reese and Reese punched Romero out.

There was a similar, yet dissimilar, situation last fall at the middle school regarding a student who was allegedly choked and the public outcry was against the teacher.

The similarity is that a teacher hit a student. That’s where the similarity ends.
To contrast these two different altercations one must look at the students' behavior and the way the teacher responded. In the case of middle school teacher Charles Prostak allegedly choking student Jacob Lovato, there didn’t appear to be a trigger or something that warranted the attack.

Also, in that case the mother was desperately trying to get middle school principal Ruben Lucero, security, Superintendent Janette Archuleta and eventually the Española School Board to answer her questions and address her concerns regarding safety in the middle school.

In Mr. Reese’s case, he had reported Romero to administrators and some of his ignored reports and poor responses by the administration are part of a civil suit several teachers are bringing against the District, Board and ProSec, the security company that is supposed to be watching over your little darlings at the high school.

We have heard from several sources, similar stories of Romero behaving poorly, to use a euphemism, and ProSec not really doing anything about it. There are eye-witness reports (often not the most dependable form of testimony) that Reese called for security before hosing down Romero and there was no response.

None of us in the newsroom can recall our web poll ever receiving such an overwhelmingly one-sided response and the speed with which people responded. Clearly, this is not a scientific poll in anyway. Our good sheriff figured out immediately how to game it, so it’s not that tough to figure out.

However, as of this writing, the response to the poll question, “Española Valley High School teacher John Reese allegedly punched a student, breaking his nose, after the student struck Reese with a metal pole and did not respond to verbal and non-violent attempts to make him stop. Was Reese’s punch justified?” was running 203 to 17. While not scientific, that’s significant.

Then there’s the comments on our web site following the story. Again, not empirical data but there are a lot of different people responding, other than the regular whiners who seem to have something to say about every story and our ineptitude and incompetence while blundering along for 56 years not knowing what we’re doing. Many are identifying themselves as teachers or students.

From the web edited for spelling, grammar and punctuation:

“That teacher should not have been arrested. He should have been given a raise.”

“It’s called self defense. That kid had it coming, end of story.”

“A student physically attacks a teacher, a public official, and he (the teacher) defends himself in an instinctive fashion, and he is arrested?”

“Why was he arrested? It sounds to me like he was just protecting himself.”

And on it runs. There are many very similar remarks. We did not find any stating the teacher should have his license revoked and publicly flogged.

That brings us to the final point. What should a teacher do in this case? Teachers want to know. It’s sad that we’ve come to the point that students drive teachers to defend themselves from physical attacks but as the student policy states, it’s against the law to attack anyone on school property. So what do you do?

Everyone has the right to defend themselves or another person being attacked. A teacher shouldn’t hit a student but if the administration and ProSec’s tired security guards were doing their respective jobs, it wouldn’t come to a point where a teacher is put in such a situation.

This really isn’t an issue of whether Reese was right to punch Romero out. It’s an issue of why did it come to a point Reese had to make that decision and the Board and transitional administration must address that breakdown soon, before it’s more than a broken nose.

DISTRICT OFFICIALS ARE TRYING TO DISCHARGE JOHN REESE FOR HIS ACTIONS … WE BELIEVE THEY ARE DOING SO BECAUSE OF HIS UNION ACTIVITIES … SACRIFICES HE MAKES ON YOUR BEHALF.

STAY TUNED TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN DO TO END THE PERSECUTION OF ESPANOLA-NEA PRESIDENT JOHN REESE