Bankbridge Regional School Bully Teacher to be Fired – Your Brushes with Bully Teachers [POLL]

Back when I was a young lad at Nazareth High School in Brooklyn, it wasn’t uncommon for some teachers to tease some of us.

Not that I really minded.

I always thought this was part of the growing up process. You were going, at some point, to get your “balls broken” by people you work with, etc.; and it was all part of what I though of at the time to be character building. And funny!

For instance, my sophomore Spanish teacher, Brother Russell was a champion ball breaker. Especially to those of us who were Italian American.

He loved to bust my balls over my first name.

One other kid he claimed was oozing Mazzola oil from his skin.

Today he’d be brought up on charges. Then it was no big deal.

Fast forward to today where an appellate court upholds firing of a teacher in South Jersey.

You’d probably remember the story of the special education teacher who was caught on video berating a student.

But berating him to the point where he was goading the student into a physical altercation.

According to this:

A special education teacher caught on camera berating a student should be fired, an appellate court ruled Monday.

Steven Roth was captured on a cellphone video angrily refusing to describe a special-ed student as normal. “You want me to call you normal, but you don’t even know what it is,” Roth shouts in the video, which was secretly recorded in October 2011 by a student at the Bankbridge Regional School.

“Life sucks. Reality sucks. Welcome to the real world,” Roth says in profanity-filled remarks to 15-year-old Julio Artuz.

Check out the video:

In its ruling Monday, a two-judge panel upheld a decision by state Education Commissioner Chris Cerf and rejected Roth’s view that his dismissal would be “unduly harsh.”

The Gloucester County Special Services School District, which operates Bankbridge, praised the ruling. The district’s school board has sought Roth’s dismissal.

“We are pleased with the decision of the Appellate Court upholding the termination of Steven Roth,” the district said in a statement. “This decision is a victory for the students, their families , and the dedicated staff of the Gloucester County Special Services School District.”

The parents of Julio Artuz could not be reached. The youth left Bankbridge after the incident, saying he felt like “trash,” Monday’s ruling noted.

His mother, Joyce Artuz, previously has said her son recorded Roth to prove that the teacher bullied him. In the video, Roth speaks angrily over an extended period, sometimes striding from the front of the classroom to stand over the boy’s desk.

(I’ll) “kick your ass till (I’m) 80 years old” Roth says at one point, adding Artuz will never be as “big” or “buff” as him.

Roth was suspended without pay after tenure charges were served on him in November 2011. An administrative law judge offered a more lenient punishment for Roth in May 2012, saying he could keep his job pending a number of penalties that included 120 days without pay, anger-management classes and written apologies to his students.

But Cerf, in a June 25 decision, pointed to Roth’s use of profanity in front of students, his aggressive body language, and repeated threats as reasons for termination.

Roth admitted that some of the statements he made on the video could be “characterized as threats.” He said his temper got the best of him, but that he would never have physically hurt the students.

“Since day one I have felt terrible about this,” Roth said in his appeal. “I expressed my feelings and my deepest regard and I felt bad.”

Cerf dismissed the argument that this was Roth’s first outburst in front of students.

“The conduct cannot be characterized as a spontaneous slip, as it continued over a long period of time and was recommenced several times over the course of the class period,” Cerf wrote in his decision.

Cerf also stated the badgering behavior by the student “pales in comparison” to Roth’s behavior in the video recording.

I’d love to hear your stories of when you thought you were being bullied by a teacher.

And take the poll below.