'Egregious,' says another hurt teacher
A student smashed his jaw in the fall. "What's next?"
By Martha Woodall
Inquirer Staff Writer

Philadelphia music teacher Ed Klein, 55, says the attack that left a Germantown High School math teacher with a broken neck was not an isolated incident.

Klein would know. He's still recuperating from the broken jaw and concussion he suffered when a student slugged him Nov. 3 inside West Philadelphia High School. The 16-year-old boy punched him after Klein tried to impose discipline in his classes.

Klein's jaw, which suffered nerve damage, was wired shut for six weeks. He has daily episodes of excruciatingly painful ringing in his ears. And he was so traumatized by the assault, he attends weekly counseling sessions.

In addition, Klein has been racked by guilt for the last week, wondering whether - if he had given an earlier public account of his attack - the district might have made security improvements that might have prevented Frank Burd from having two bones in his neck broken when two students attacked him last Friday at Germantown.

"What happened to me is egregious," Klein said yesterday. "What happened to this guy was worse. A broken jaw. A broken neck. What's next? Clearly things are out of hand."

Klein, a classical guitarist, has taught music in Philadelphia public schools for 17 years. He had been at South Philadelphia High School for three years when district budget cuts eliminated his job in October.

The only music vacancy was at West Philadelphia, so he transferred in early October.

"I thought South Philly was tough," Klein said, "but I had no idea what was I getting into. I walked into utter pandemonium because they had had substitutes for the first month."

While he tried to teach jazz, Klein said, students made phone calls in class, brought in bags of fast food, and listened to their own music on "electronic devices."

The school handbook tells teachers to call parents if students cause problems in class. After Klein made the calls, four of his five classes settled down.

But on Friday, Oct. 27, a student in his worst class - third period - told him to stop calling parents or he would regret it.

The next Monday, as students changed classes between third and fourth periods, a student sprayed Klein head to toe with a water-filled school fire extinguisher.

At the same time the next day, a student sprayed Klein again.

Then on Wednesday, he said, another student threatened to kill him and "f- him up" after school for allegedly causing a friend to be suspended.

And on Thursday, four students Klein had never seen before walked into his classroom at the end of third period. They surrounded him and began picking up papers from his desk and boasting: "There is nothing you can do about this, cracker."

Throughout the days of the harassment and threats, Klein said, he went to the school's security office to report them and fill out the required forms.

When Klein arrived the morning of Friday, Nov. 3, he told the security guard at the school's metal detector that he had had enough and would seek a transfer to another school.

At 10:40 a.m. that day, Klein said, a student he didn't recognize came into his room at the end of third period while other students were in the room. Klein asked his name and directed him to leave. "It was clear he was looking for a confrontation," he recalled.

Klein stepped into the hallway to see whether he could spot a school police officer who was often nearby, but no one was there.

The student walked around and in front of him and squared off like a boxer, Klein said. The student began laughing and taunting Klein with his fists.

"He was jumping around like he was going to hit him me."

Instinctively, Klein said, he put up his hands.

"That's the last thing I remember," he said.

Klein, who was briefly knocked out, was taken by ambulance to Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was treated. His wife drove him home.

District officials have told him that the 11th grader who attacked him has been expelled and sent to a disciplinary school.

Klein said he did not know whether he would return to a Philadelphia classroom.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," he said. "I'm living a nightmare ... and the worst of it is that it happened in a public school."