News / Education

E-mail This Page Print This Page

On March 19, a student brutally attacked Lisa W. Rath, foreground, a teacher at King’s Fork Middle School in Suffolk, sending her to the hospital and leaving her with the need to make a change. BILL TIERNAN/THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

By MATTHEW BOWERS, The Virginian-Pilot
© January 17, 2005

SUFFOLK — On paper, Lisa W. Rath’s ordeal ends Tuesday. A juvenile court judge will sentence one of her students, a girl who savagely beat her in a King’s Fork Middle School hallway last year.

But not everything is in the court record.

Not the nightmares. Not the panic attacks. Not the answers to the Big Question: Will she be able to put this behind her and stand in front of a classroom again?

The weather on Friday, March 19, 2004, started out unusually mild. But the wind picked up during the day, and it would turn unseasonably cool.

For Rath and five to 10 other King’s Fork Middle teachers, the day began as every Friday did, at 6:30 a.m. at the nearby Obici Hospital cafeteria over cheese biscuits and coffee. Unwinding time at week’s end.

"I kept asking her to please stop." - Lisa W. Rath, above SchoolZone: More education news See the complete Pilot, exactly as in print - View stories, photos and ads - E-mail clippings - Print copies Log in or learn more Email this Page Print this Page Get Email Newsletters

Not that Rath seemed to need much unwinding. The 13-year veteran epitomized the got-it-together teacher: A seventh-grade team leader. The school’s first Teacher of the Year after it opened in 2001. The one the principal regularly called on to join a committee, attend a conference or write a report for the bosses downtown.

She also shopped for Christmas gifts year-round and often found herself unconsciously straightening things while talking with guests in her home. Hers was a world of order, control and helping others. “You call her, and it’s taken care of,” said her principal, E. Talmadge Darden. Rath’s world was shaken briefly early in the school year. She was knocked unconscious in September 2003 while helping another teacher separate fighting students. She spent a couple of days in the hospital with a concussion.

Nothing like that had ever happened to her. She had no trouble shoving the incident to the back of her mind.

It was an accident. No one had been mad at her. To her, school violence remained something that happened somewhere else. She still felt safe in school, in Suffolk. She still loved teaching.

More importantly, she had students to prepare for English and civics Standards of Learning tests. And at least one to especially fret over. The 14-year-old girl struggled in class, when she showed up at all. Her mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The girl often was angry, and lashed out at classmates and teachers.

But the same girl could write a contrite apology letter, dotting the i’s with little hearts.

Rath worked to build a rapport with the girl. Any child can learn if given enough attention, she once wrote in her professional portfolio.

She stayed after school to help her catch up, and sometimes drove her home. As she had done with many other students, Rath bought the girl notebooks and school supplies. She bought her a coat.

“It was something I would do for any kid,” Rath said.

On that Friday, more than 30 students filled Rath’s second-floor civics classroom for the last period of the last day of the week. When the girl entered, the hood on her black sweatshirt covered her head. Not appropriate, not in accordance with school policy.

Off, Rath commanded. The girl complied, but slammed her books on her desk, laid down her head and went to sleep.

Pick your battles, Rath thought. From her stool in front of the class, she began describing the differences between local and state governments.

Twenty minutes later, the squeal of the fire alarm interrupted Rath and woke up the girl. A drill. The students flowed to a stairwell.

Halfway down, the girl flipped her hood back up, as did several other girls.

Take them off, Rath ordered. All complied but the girl.

“I’m not taking my hood off,” Rath heard her mumble.

Rath reached out and pulled the hood down just before they exited the school. The girl spun around, drew back a fist and spat curses at Rath.

“I’m going to get you!” she threatened, inches from Rath’s face.

Another teacher quickly led the girl away. Rath shrugged it off. She needed to take attendance. She’d send the girl to the guidance office after the fire drill.

The all-clear soon sounded. Rath led her class to the door, and asked an office assistant to escort the girl to the office. While another teacher took over her class, Rath also started toward the office.

Almost immediately, she felt something strike her. The girl’s threatening voice was screaming and cursing in her ear.

She had broken away from her escort and attacked Rath from behind, raining blows on her head, grabbing handfuls of hair and pounding her skull against the wall.

Stunned, Rath curled up with her fingers laced across the back of her head, vainly trying to protect herself.

“I kept asking her to please stop,” Rath recalled.

The punching and hair-pulling seemed to last forever; it took a few moments for other teachers to wrench the girl, still cursing and threatening, away from Rath. Meanwhile, teacher Lela F. Joyner wrapped her body protectively around Rath’s head. Hanks of hair littered the floor. Blood smeared the wall.

Joyner pulled Rath into a nearby classroom and locked the door. She held Rath’s head as the injured teacher vomited.

An ambulance whisked Rath to the emergency room at Obici, where she had begun her day seven hours earlier. She arrived with a black eye, scratches on her neck and shoulder, contusions on her face and scalp, knots on her head and missing a contact lens. Quarter-sized patches of hair were torn from her scalp. Doctors discovered a partly torn eardrum, which would leave her with a permanent mild hearing loss.

Discharged from the hospital, Rath went to the courthouse and police station. The ferocity of the attack led to a felony charge of malicious wounding. Rath hoped authorities could force the girl into counseling. She didn’t want another teacher to suffer the same fate.

Her family, her pastor, other teachers and Darden welcomed Rath at her home that evening. The next day, Rath awoke numb and disbelieving, dizzy, in pain and still throwing up. She ignored her constantly ringing phone, closed her blinds and brooded in the darkness.

“Why?” she kept asking herself. She had tried to help that girl – why would she turn on her like that?

On Sunday, seeing no improvement, Rath’s family doctor had her admitted to the hospital for more tests, and rest. She slept 18 hours straight. Darden kept vigil in the hospital all day.

On Wednesday, the day Rath went home from the hospital, Darden suggested she call Barbara E. Maury, a therapist with the Bon Secours Employee Assistance Program. Rath agreed because she trusted Darden, even though she recoiled at the idea of therapy. She had never needed such help before; she was the one who helped others.

But she was worrying about returning to the classroom. She had nightmares. She didn’t want to be alone, but she also didn’t want to be in a crowd, particularly with people behind her. Mixed in, inexplicably, was guilt.

“What did I do wrong?” she wondered. “How did I fail this girl?”

The first sessions were uncomfortable. But Rath kept going. Maury diagnosed Rath with post-traumatic stress disorder – the flashbacks, anxiety, depression and problems eating and sleeping were classic signs. Rath was in bad shape.

Seeing someone in a black hooded sweatshirt – not uncommon apparel – induced panic. She wondered if she was going crazy.

Maury suggested two dozen helping books; Rath dutifully read them all. She had Rath compile a scrapbook of her ordeal, several inches thick, from the bad – police and medical reports – to the good – scores of encouraging cards and letters from friends and students and strangers, including entire staffs of other schools.

Rath titled it, simply, “March 19, 2004.”

By mid-May, Rath felt a need to return to school. The girl had been expelled – she was confined to house arrest – and SOL tests loomed. Rath didn’t want her students to take them under a substitute teacher.

Maury thought it was too early.

The students won. Rath’s husband, David, held her hand as she walked up to the school doors. The welcome overwhelmed her.

Big ribbon and sign out front. Gifts every hour from fellow teachers.

Rath felt like she went through the motions of teaching.

Rath knew she needed closure. And she wanted to see the girl once more – without the rage in her young eyes.

A trial was postponed in April, and again in July. Each time Rath’s emotions rose and fell. Her anxieties increased. She and Maury, by now a trusted friend, talked often.

A new school year started in September with the trial still hanging over her head and her nerves still raw, even though the girl remained expelled.

Rath’s life had changed. A student scuffle in the hallway would send her to the bathroom to calm herself. She couldn’t bring herself to answer her door at home.

Another trial postponement in October pushed Rath to the breaking point. The meltdown came at a church Halloween party.

Rath, dressed as a blue Lego block, slipped down some stairs. Although she didn’t hurt herself, she started crying. And couldn’t stop.

Darden, a fellow Suffolk Christian Church member, had been cooking for the party. He took her home. Rath spent most of the week in bed. Concerned, Maury got her to another therapist to try hypnosis. A nurse-practitioner there told Rath, “Your bucket is empty.”

Rath leaned even more on her strong religious faith. At one point she dropped to her knees in resignation. I can’t do it anymore, she prayed – it’s up to You.

She returned to school, made it through Thanksgiving, talked more with Maury as the fourth trial date, Dec. 7, approached.

Teachers gathered as Rath left school for the courthouse. She started to pull her teacher’s ID badge from around her neck, but a co-worker stopped her.

“Put that badge back on,” she said. “You represent us.”

Rath wore it as she testified.

Everyone, including Rath, agreed with the decision to allow the girl to plead guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful wounding. This kept the girl’s fate in juvenile court, where rehabilitative services for young people are more readily available than in adult jail.

The 14-year-old showed up in court looking professional in a navy pinstriped suit and glasses. Rath didn’t get the eye contact she craved in the tiny courtroom; Maury, however, spied tears on the girl’s cheeks.

Still, Rath felt a dark cloud lift. She told reporters she had been praying for the girl – her mother had died since the attack – and her family. She hoped she would get any help she needs.

And Rath hoped it would end her ordeal. But it has not.

She no longer feels safe in Suffolk. And teaching’s not the same.

“I’ve put a wall up now between me and the students,” Rath said, “and I won’t let students over the wall.”

So she plans to move. And, at 38, she’s preparing for a career change.

She still wants to help people, but in a different way. She has applied for a master’s degree program in social work. She wants to become a counselor.

A time line Rath drew as part of her therapy began by noting the date that “my life changed due to a violent attack by a student.” It ended the day of the trial with the notation that “school violence needs to be addressed.”

For Rath and the students she would have taught, it’s too late.

This report was compiled from interviews with Rath and family members, Maury and Darden, and court testimony. Reach Matthew Bowers at 222-5120 or matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com.

More Education Articles • Portsmouth schools to launch ''early college'' program - Jan. 15 • Portsmouth school gives used computers to families - Jan. 14 • Head of Suffolk academy to retire - Jan. 14

E-mail This Page

Print This Page

Top of Page / Give us feedback / Sponsor this channel