This story contains descriptions of assault and photos of injuries.
Sitting at her dining room table two days before Thanksgiving, special education teacher Tracey Sorrell pointed to the evidence of her student's recent outbursts left behind on her body.
"It's a cut from where he kicked me," she said, holding out her ankle. "The bruises are finally healing on this leg. I had this leg — the whole back here is still bruised up."
Even though she hadn't seen her students since Friday, mottled purple and red bruises were still visible up and down her arms.
"This is through Kevlar sleeves," Sorrell said, referencing the protective equipment her district handed out last year.
According to national research, student-caused injuries to teachers are on the rise, and their risk of getting hurt is higher if they work in special education. When that happens, it's often because students with disabilities act out without realizing the consequences of their actions.
A 2024 TPR investigation found evidence of that national problem close to home: a widespread pattern of student-caused injuries among educators who work with kids with disabilities in the Northside Independent School District, where Sorrell works.
This year, Sorrell said she's dealing with an unusually aggressive student, resulting in more injuries at work than ever before.
Sorrell has worked at Northside ISD for 20 years. Most of that time she's taught students with cognitive disabilities who need more support than they can get in a general education classroom.
"Some can't read. Most can't read. They can't write their names, they can't use scissors," she explained.
Sorrell said she's used to students occasionally being aggressive. She gets at least one injury most school years, including a broken toe, a cracked cheekbone, and black eyes.
Most of the time she applies de-escalation techniques, teaches the student better behaviors, and things improve. But, this year, she said one of her students is more than just occasionally aggressive. She said he has had at least one violent outburst a day since mid-October. Lately, she said it's accelerated to twice a day.
"When everything, even something that's a reward, turns into something that's going to set him off, there's something more going on," Sorrell said.
"It's like a bat out of hell. He goes and, and that's what I found with most kids that are aggressive, is it's very fast," she added. "He's going to be over at me, or he's going to be tearing up something."
Sorrell said during outbursts the student attacks her or another staff member and throws computers and lamps. They move the other kids to another room and try to calm him down, but she said techniques that work one day stop working three days later.
"How many times have I got to document injuries? At least 15. I've got at least 15 this year, and that's honestly just within the last five weeks," she said in late November.
Since that time, her number of injuries has grown.
Kathleen Cuevas, the Northside school district's new director in charge of special education, said nobody wants anyone to be injured or feel unsafe at work.
"Do things happen? Absolutely. Do we want them to happen? Absolutely not," Cuevas said. "And so, we provide the training, we provide equipment. We definitely want to make sure that you are reporting and sharing out as soon as something happens."
Sorrell said she and her co-workers are using the protective gear, and reporting their injuries. And her campus is reaching out to district experts for guidance.
But so far, she said she's only gotten advice from the district's behavioral specialist.
"I had everything implemented the next day. Some of it was eh, and some of it did nothing," Sorrell said.
“It shouldn't take four weeks of data and then another four weeks of data. And, you know, being told, 'Oh, well, he hurt you. So that's just more data.' It's not. It's not more data. It's me getting hurt. It's my staff members getting hurt,” Sorrell said. “It's a student seeing this and the trauma it causes them.”
She said an autism specialist came out to observe the student before Thanksgiving, but three weeks later she still hasn't gotten any feedback from him.
"What these students need is the support from not just us, but from the whole district. And I'm not seeing that support," Sorrell said.
Sorrell teaches about 30 students split between three classrooms called Alternative Learning Environments, or ALE. When they're fully staffed, each classroom has a teacher and two assistants for 10 students.
She said she was told not to assign a staff member to the aggressive student because it's not in his individualized education plan. But she says it's not safe not to have an adult next to him at all times.
"He needs at least a one on one. He really needs a two on one," Sorrell said. "But then again, if he's in a setting where he can get the constant attention he needs, it may pass. They may be able to get these behaviors under control."
Because of his constant aggression, and because of her school's limited staffing, Sorrell said the student needs to be in a different setting, where he can get more intensive support — perhaps at the district's school for special education students with behavior concerns.
But before Thanksgiving she said the district wasn't ready to entertain the idea, and after two more really intense weeks of school, moving the student still isn't on the district's radar.
"I haven't heard anything in a couple of weeks, and it's just getting worse. It's just getting worse," she said on Sunday.
TPR followed up with the district specifically to ask why they haven't taken more action yet in response to Sorrell's aggressive student.
In a statement, Northside officials said "the highly specialized nature of the work required in certain environments can, at times, regrettably lead to bodily injury."
The officials said special education students can only be moved to a different setting when a committee decides there's enough evidence to show it is needed. They said that evidence can be obtained through things like behavior assessments, intervention plans, and observations.
Federal law requires students with disabilities be placed in the least restrictive environment that meets their needs.
"NISD takes seriously all injuries sustained by district staff while performing the routine responsibilities and specialized duties of their job. While the safety of all educators and classroom staff remains a priority, we also recognize that the highly specialized nature of the work required in certain environments can, at times, regrettably lead to bodily injury. Their work is often being done in specialized classroom settings dedicated to students with very specific educational needs.At the specific campus referenced, this specialized environment currently supports 31 special education students divided among three classrooms and staffed by a comprehensive team comprising two certified classroom teachers, one long-term substitute, and six instructional assistants. All these dedicated individuals have received, or are scheduled to receive, specialized training pertinent to the needs of the students they serve and all have access to personal protective equipment (PPE) to help mitigate potential injuries. Our commitment remains unwavering: to ensure the safety and well-being of both our students and our staff. At the same time, NISD will continue to adhere strictly to all applicable special education rules and regulations."Northside ISD Statement
But Sorrell said the situation in her classroom is an emergency that can't wait.
"It shouldn't take four weeks of data and then another four weeks of data. And, you know, being told, 'Oh, well, he hurt you. So that's just more data.' It's not. It's not more data. It's me getting hurt. It's my staff members getting hurt," Sorrell said. "It's a student seeing this and the trauma it causes them."
She said in her first few years at Northside the district was much more hands-on and quicker to act.
For instance, when she was still an instructional assistant, around 18 years ago, she said her vice-principal was able to take immediate action after observing a student during a violent outburst.
"He turned around and walked out and went to the principal's office and said, 'Get that kid off this campus before he kills one of them.' And three days later, they were moving the kid," Sorrell said.
She thinks part of the reason the district is less hands-on now is because there are fewer specialists to provide support.
"I can remember there being probably five or six autism specialists," she said. "Now, there's one for the entire district."
Because there are fewer specialists, there are fewer people available to observe students and gather the data necessary to move a student.
"I get budget cuts…But there's just some things you can't cut. They've got to either find another way, or the state's going to have to start coughing up because these special ed kids need support," Sorrell said.
Sorrell's concerns about low staffing levels are a common refrain among special educators at Northside and across the country. High turnover and vacancy rates in special education is a chronic problem nationwide.
In November, she and five other special educators brought their concerns about staffing and curriculum to the school board.
"At the beginning of the school year, my school was unable to obtain a certified SPED teacher for a classroom," a special education instructional assistant told the board.
"ALE has a high turnaround of teachers and staff. There are currently long-term subs filling teacher vacancies," Grace Garza said.
"Vacant positions remain unfilled and morale is declining," Christina Garcia told the board. "Many teachers, myself included, question whether we can continue this profession long term."
After the board meeting — and after TPR asked the district about the extremely aggressive student in Sorrell's classroom — Sorrell said representatives from the district reached out and came out to observe her classroom.
She said she was briefly hopeful that things would change, but the second week of December was harder than ever, with constant outbursts and multiple injuries.
"Thursday was all day, all day long. … It was from three minutes into the first bell the whole day," Sorrell said. "To look at my staff's face. They're drained, and they're like deer in the headlights. They just don't know what to do anymore."
At the end of the day, she said she went into her principal's office in tears and said it couldn't continue.
"And so, he's like, 'Well, what else can we do?' Because we're already writing him up. And I said, 'We need to suspend him."
Legally, school districts can't suspend students if their behavior is because of their disability. Sorrell said her principal didn't suspend the student, but by 11 o'clock the next day he called the student's guardian and asked them to take him home for the rest of the day.
She's 60, and planned on retiring in four years. But now she's just trying to hold out until the end of the school year. Her family wants her to retire as soon as she's eligible in January.
"They're pushing for it, and I understand why. If I was in their shoes, I would be too, but I just I don't want to leave my students, and I don't want to leave the staff short," Sorrell said.
Right now, she comes home every day exhausted, stressed, and sometimes bleeding. She said she doesn't have the energy to cook and just eats a bowl of popcorn on the couch and goes to bed, only to wake up in the middle of the night trying to think up new ways to meet the needs of her students tomorrow.
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