Minneapolis: SPED school serving kids with severe needs not protecting teachers from students

May 23, 2018, KSTP—TV Minneapolis, MN: Former Principal at Harrison Education Center Not Surprised by Assaults http://kstp.com/news/harrison-education-center-former-principal-assaults-not-surprised-/4920336/ Monica Fabre at one time served as the principal at Harrison Education Center in Minneapolis. ... She was hired to supervise the district's only special education level IV school serving high school students. "I needed to address the behaviors of these kids and the climate," she said. "It's like a prison." One of her employees was Mohammed Dukuly. He served as a teaching assistant until he was attacked by a student. Fabre reported the assault to higher-ups and said they did not put any systems in place to address staff safety or assist the children. "If you have people who aren't qualified or training properly, all you have is a body," she said. "So instead of a facility being used to help the most vulnerable, you have a facility housing the most dangerous and somebody's going to get hurt or killed." Fabre eventually was injured on the job. She suffered a concussion after being jumped by a female student. The student was arrested, charged and remains on probation until 2019. "The only shock was the district's unwillingness to change," she said. "MPS gets a lot of money for the children at Harrison and they do not spend the money on services. Our children need wraparound mental health services."... "The assault that I experienced at the hands of a student is a manifestation of MPS' failure to provide adequate support, mandated services, proper procedures, staffing and implementation of many research-based plans that I attempted to implement," she said. "I truly feel what MPS is doing is not only illegal but also abusive towards the students." Harrison Education Center is the district's only special education level IV school serving high school students with extreme emotional and behavioral issues. Fabre said there is more of a focus on "housing" them throughout the day than learning. In recent years, there has been at least five student-on-staff assaults....