Teacher’s Aide Breaks Wrist After Being Attacked by Student at Same Texas Middle School Where Hanger Was Thrown At Assistant Principal, Leaving Her Blind In One Eye

Months after an assistant principal was attacked and blinded in one eye by a student at a Texas middle school, a teacher’s aide at the same school injured her wrist after another middle schooler threw a chair at her.

The Corsicana Independent School District confirmed the incident happened at Collins Intermediate School on Jan. 21.

Carol Tidwell, a paraprofessional who has been working with the school district for a year, said an agitated student from a fifth and sixth-grade special education class threw a chair at her.

Tidwell fell, dodging a direct hit from the chair, but broke her wrist in the process.

“The chair hit the floor, and it came rolling at me, and I went a little bit faster, I tripped, broke my left arm, my wrist,” Tidwell told KWTX.

Tidwell said educators at the middle school don’t have many options when it comes to subduing students undergoing behavioral or emotional crises.

“We are not allowed to restrain them, we can’t touch them, so no, basically we can’t do nothing,” Tidwell remarked. “You’re basically just standing there, taking the abuse, until somebody else gets in to help you.”

She was told that treatment for the injury would be taken care of, but she wants the school district to treat the real issue that’s endangering the safety of educators.

“I was just told you’d be on workman’s comp and they would take care of the problem, but the problem has been there since I have been there, so we’ll see,” Tidwell said.

The school district said the “situation was resolved and learning resumed quickly,” but Tidwell is demanding that the district implement improved measures to keep educators safe when encountering aggressive students.

“I just want them to do what’s right. Take care of the problem. I understand you can’t do anything with this child… he’s a minor with special needs, I get it, but at least try and make it safer for us, who are trying to help them,” Tidwell said.

Candra Rogers, an assistant principal at Collins Intermediate School, echoed Tidwell’s exact sentiments in December, months after a student attacked her, landing her in the hospital with a severe injury.

Last August, a sixth grader at Collins threw chairs and a hanger at Rogers. The hanger caught in her left eye causing it to drop from its socket. Rogers had to undergo surgery earlier this month to have the eye removed and now she’s permanently blind in that eye.

She held a press conference in December, calling on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to increase funding to better equip educators in the state’s public schools with the resources they need to provide improved services to students with behavioral issues and disorders.

“I believe in public school education, but what happened to me should never happen to another educator,” Rogers said. “Chairs do not, should not be thrown in school, but that happens every day across the country. School is a place to come to learn, to thrive, to achieve things you didn’t think you could. It’s not a place for ducking chairs or hangers.”

“People need to know,” Tidwell told FOX4. “These kids need to be helped. I don’t get paid to get messed up like this.”