UA student teacher fears violence in TUSD
Correction
Because of reporting errors, the quotes in the Feb. 15 article, "UA student fears violence in TUSD" were taken out of context. Veronica Ayala, an elementary education senior, said she does not feel intimidated in her classroom. The Wildcat regrets the error.
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Even though UA elementary education senior Veronica Ayala loves teaching at C. E. Rose Elementary School on Tucson's south side, she is sometimes apprehensive.
She hasn't seen any gang activity on this block. Nobody wears bandannas to signify gang membership. No fighting has yet erupted.
But after two teenagers allegedly murdered three employees at an east-Tucson Pizza Hut last month, Ayala started becoming anxious. The assailants entered the restaurant Jan. 19 before 10 p.m., ordered dinner and waited for the restaurant to close, police said. The workers were gunned down before 11:15 p.m.
Ayala has trained in schools with a history of turmoil. During the 1997-98 school year, approximately 36 students were expelled from TUSD schools. That same year administrators suspended 5,924 for tobacco use, etc.
"I am afraid," she said. "I have witnessed violence. We hear all about it - that it's even among older elementary kids."
While visiting schools other than C.E. Rose, Ayala hasn't seen any shootings or stabbings, but said she perceived a hostile attitude and has witnessed pushing, cliques and fights.
"It's the body language they use to intimidate the other person," she said.
Glenn Howell, an investigator in TUSD's Department of School Safety, said it's natural for anyone to feel fear.
"If I were a student teacher," he said. "I'd be thinking - 'how many Pizza Hut kids are in my room?'" he said.
There are agencies working to help Ayala and the 252 other University of Arizona student teachers working their way into the classroom. Tucson Unified School District officials are also helping teachers deal with high-risk students.
More than half of the university's student teachers work in the TUSD district, said Marilyn Kroeger, UA coordinator of field placement. Another 400 students work weekly "in the field," she said.
Howell conducts a regular seminar at the UA College of Education about violence and gangs each semester. He likes to communicate with teachers as much as possible, but most of the time, he is working the streets, he said.
"We all have to work together," he said. "If you don't have safety, you can't provide education."
Kroeger said during her 14 years of work at the UA, no student teacher has aired complaints of fear while teaching at the local schools.
Toni Griego Jones, head of the UA's Teaching and Teacher Education Department, taught in Denver's urban areas and still occasionally teaches first and second grades in Tucson's elementary schools.
Youths may have some basic problems and people misinterpret them, Griego Jones said.
"It's how you look at them," she said. "Some of the things in their lives - schools don't have control over them. Schools try to provide a safe environment where students can learn."
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