Teacher Sexual Harassment: When Students Sexually Harass Teachers

In my book More Teacher Misery, I focused a lot on the lack of consequences for deplorable behavior in schools across the country. However, there is a serious crisis that requires immediate attention.

The sexual harassment of teachers by students.

This atrocious and often dangerous behavior is mostly ignored by the administration because they are not allowed to actually punish kids anymore. In this post, we’re going to focus on this specific aspect of declining student behavior that is widespread and mystifyingly continues with no consequences.

Teacher sexual harassment. It happens, it’s real, and it’s putting teachers at risk.

To stay silent is to stay complicit.

Teacher Sexual Harassment: A Downard Spiraling Problem

I’ve written a lot about the increasingly rapid decline of student behavior. Unfortunately, this can and does include students sexually harassing teachers without consequence.

It’s quite commonplace for a young, female teacher to be sexually harassed both verbally and physically by male students (and occasionally female students too). The general response to something that would absolutely be considered criminal behavior outside of school is “boys will be boys” and “deal with it”.

It’s as if being harassed is part of the job description, and if you complain too much about it, you are seen as a burden on the school.

One article from The Guardian in 2018 described the kind of sexual harassment that was allowed to go on at a prestigious secondary school in London.

Can you imagine that? The administration tried to find fault with the teacher. If I were her, I’d be getting my files together for a big lawsuit, but the culture of fear at her workplace was too intimidating.

At the same school, female staff who reported being sexually harassed by students saw no action taken. Another teacher “had her phone stolen by the kids, who rang her dad and said: ‘We’re going to rape your daughter outside school.’ She wasn’t supported [by the school] at all, and no one was interested.”

Sexual Harassment in the Classroom

The article continues with more horrifying stories.

Another teacher had students call the school’s main office, pose as parents, and ask to be put through to her extension. When she answered, the boys would make “really threatening, lewd comments. One kid said he was going to rape me; do it down my neck and into my face, or he was going to catch me later on my way to the train; [he] knew where I headed after school.”

She reported the situation to the principal, and she was told not to say anything in case she was “embarrassed” by the incident becoming public. She asked to involve the police and for the pupils to be held accountable, “but instead, the school simply shut down the internal telephone system.”

“It becomes grinding,” she said. “You have no idea what to do. You dread going in. In some classes, the boys would be so aggressive it would just be an hour of hell.”

One might be inclined to think that maybe this one school in the U.K. is just a nightmare and not the norm. But her story is not uncommon. In the same article, a sociology teacher described how her 15-year-old male students asked her for blowjobs and made comments about her breasts in class. She felt too intimidated to report it to admin.

“I hate to say it, but a lot of the time, I ignored it out of fear that it would somehow be seen to be my fault.”

Another young English teacher said male students made “extremely sexually suggestive comments,” and one repeatedly interrupted a lesson to ask her to be his valentine. “When I told him to stop as he was inappropriate,” she says, “he told me he knew where I lived.”

The gaslighting of these teachers and victims continued.

When she reported this to the administration, she was told to “adjust [her] teaching strategies and not tolerate his behavior.” Another student said, “he wanted to anally fist her.” When she reported it, not only was no action taken, but she was told to “expect” such harassment, and they said it “was normal boys’ behavior.”

Sexual Harassment of Teachers by Students

Teacher sexual harassment is very common in the U.S. as well. I will let the experiences of my followers speak for themselves.

(Let me just add here that male teachers also get sexually harassed and other kinds of sexual harassment also take place for males in the classroom.)

• I had a boy secretly take a picture of me and photoshop it with a penis by my mouth and then spread it via social media. Admin. made him apologize to me. Of course, he was kept in my class.
  When I told my husband about the situation, he wanted to go to my school and beat up the admin. I had to beg him not to so I could keep my job. At this point, I was stuck; I had something like 15 years at this school. My income is necessary for my family of four to get by.
• My administrator was called a f***ing d*** by a student. The district told her to counsel him on sexual harassment, and the student continued bullying and harassing teachers.
• I had a student who constantly sexually harassed me throughout an entire school year. He would air hump in my direction. He left me notes, saying, “I want to f*** you in the a**hole.” He called me a b****, c***, and yelled out, “suck my d***” a lot in class. He once whispered, “I want you to have my baby” into my ear. I reported the behavior over and over to admin., the school psychologist, his counselor, and even H.R. No one cared.
  They scheduled a meeting with his mom without me, even though I thought it was very important that I be in that meeting. The next day he said to me, “You better watch your back because I will find you and kill you.” When I reported that, the consequence was that he couldn’t come to my class for two days. When he returned, the abuse continued. I asked my union rep. for help, and she laughed at me. She said that a student had actually tried to kill her while she hid in a closet. “Harassment is a rite of passage for female teachers,” she said. “One day, you will laugh at this.”
  Years later, I’m not laughing.
• In my first year of undergrad, I taught at a technical college, so my students were mostly male, and all were adults. I had one student whose first language was Spanish, so sometimes, he’d stay after class, and I’d help him by summarizing the lesson for him in Spanish and doing some practice problems on the board. This lasted no more than five minutes.
  Well, apparently, he took that as me flirting and starting to leave notes on my desk about how beautiful I was and that he loved me. I kept all the notes and reported them to my boss, but nothing was done. Then, the student started closing and locking the door during these sessions. I reported that too.
  When he stuck out his arms and physically blocked me between the wall and my desk and began telling me how beautiful I was, I went into fight or flight mode and pushed past him and went immediately to my boss to say I was uncomfortable. Several days later, I was called into a “mediation meeting” with H.R., my boss, and the student, where I was told the relationship wasn’t inappropriate since the student was at the college level. There were no rules against student-teacher relationships. I was told if I didn’t want to encourage the student, I should insist on taking our after-class conversations to the hallway. I didn’t continue my contract with that school next year.
• An 8th-grade student full-on grabbed my butt and squeezed it three times. I reported it to admin. but the student denied it and the admin said, “He’s a really good kid. I’m sure he didn’t mean to. He’s really upset. You should apologize for accusing him of that.” He faced no consequences, and a month later, he did the same thing to another female teacher.
• I was sent porn links, threats of sexual violence (with graphic sexually violent images), and death threats by a student. Police were investigating, but one day into the investigation, the district asked me to transfer out of the school (I had been there for seven years) before the police had concluded the investigation.

Why the Issue of Teachers Being Sexually Harassed by Students Continues

In a profession rife with toxicity where teachers are regularly bullied by administrators, is it any shock that nothing is being done to curb this crisis?

But again, I want to stress that to stay silent in the face of violence is to be complicit in that violence. The industry needs to do better.

But instead of systemic change, let’s see why the sexual harassment of teachers continues to be perpetuated.

Students Don’t Receive Any Consequences

More often than not, when a teacher reports sexual harassment by students, nothing is done. These students don’t receive any consequences or punishment for their actions, despite them being quite egregious.

• I was sent messages through our school’s online message system from a male student with explicit sexual language about what he wanted to do to my butt. The school’s police officer said it “wasn’t a threat,” so it wasn’t a crime.
  Two of the three boys involved were removed from school by their parents, who didn’t like that the admin was considering punishing them. The kid who actually sent the message wasn’t a student in my class, and since they couldn’t “prove” that he did it, there was no consequence for him.
• In my first year of teaching, I taught a credit recovery class for 2nd-semester seniors. They were mostly male and 18-years-old. They would blast porn from their phones, talk about gang-raping me, make sexual comments about me, etc. I documented everything and would send email after email.
  The admin, of course, did nothing. The only threat they received was that they would potentially miss out on prom. They didn’t.
• A former student of mine played porn in class. The admin. said that they would do something about it, but the student continued making sexual comments toward me. I reported it because I didn’t want my other students to think that it was okay to speak that way. Again, nothing was done.
• I received an incredibly lewd email from a student that is so inappropriate I don’t even feel comfortable sharing it. I just couldn’t believe the sexual things they said about my body. The issue made it up to the district level, but there was never a real punishment.
• My district recently took rape off the discipline matrix as a zero-tolerance offense.
• When I taught grade 8, one student said: “I want to cover you in chocolate sauce, and rage f*** you.” He never got in trouble.
• I am a physical education teacher, and one of my coworkers had an 8th-grade boy expose himself to her. The administration did NOTHING. I had just started teaching, and I received a lot of unwanted attention.
  Boys whistle and make inappropriate comments. Then a boy asked me for my number, and I lost it. I went to the head of discipline and told him, and he replied precisely, “Do you think I can do something about it every time a child comments like that? No. So deal with it.”

The Punishment Doesn’t Fit the Crime

As violence in schools only increases, the lack of accountability only deepens. Punishments are few and far between and rarely impactful in their delivery.

When students finally are given consequences for sexually harassing teachers, it’s often nothing more than a missed period or something totally random that won’t help change their behavior.

• I was only 24 when I started teaching. A 16-year-old boy who was way bigger than me blocked the door and wouldn’t let me leave while two other kids stood in the hall and laughed. The boy was saying that I should ask him for permission to leave. It lasted at least 10 minutes.
  I cried on my way home. When I reported it the next day, the response I got was, “Do you want him to be punished?” YES, I DO! He got a one-day in-school suspension and was removed from my class because he didn’t feel comfortable.
• A middle school student groped a former coworker, and his punishment was to hand out pencils at an awards assembly. He was back in her classroom the next day.
• I had a group of 7th-grade boys who would make sexual moaning noises any time they saw me. When I reported it to the principal, the response I got was, “boys will be boys.” The next year one of these boys got my phone number somehow and began sending me messages asking me to wear a short skirt to school, send him nude photos, etc.
  I reported it to admin. and he got no consequence because he cried when he was confronted about it. They said they felt his embarrassment for being caught was enough punishment.
• During my first year teaching, I had a fourth grader pull my arms behind my back, dry hump me, and say he wanted to “chain me up.” The principal’s only consequence was a loss of one recess.
• I work at an all-boys school. I was sexually assaulted by two students one day. I had to have personal meetings with them after their two-day suspension, and then they were back in my classroom. Apparently, there was a game the students were playing to see if they could get away with touching a teacher sexually.

Sexual Harassment Blamed on the Teacher’s Clothing

Blaming the victim is huge in teaching, especially when it comes to teacher sexual harassment.

Even if a teacher is wearing a “modest” outfit completely in line with the teaching dress code, they are often blamed for wearing revealing clothing and “tempting” students.

• I worked at a school where kids were circulating up-skirt pics of at least one female teacher. Kids got caught, but the consensus of staff and admin was that the teacher was asking for it, in a floor-length maxi skirt.
• A male student gave me his cellphone number and said to call him if I was ever alone with a particular student who sat across from him. He didn’t want me to be alone with him because he made lewd comments about me that were so offensive one girl that had overheard couldn’t even repeat it. I reported this to the admin. The female student had to write down what she heard, and it matched the accounts that two other students gave.
  The admin said, “Well, you’re a young, pretty girl. You should expect it.” He went on to say how sometimes my clothes seemed too tight or too short, and the female administrator said, “Stand up. Let’s see what you’re wearing today.” I was humiliated. The student was moved from my class, but there was no further punishment. A male teacher asked why I was making the student’s life so much harder.
• When I first started teaching, I would always wear nice knee-length dresses and cardigans and other cute professional elementary art teacher outfits. A group of 6th-grade boys was caught calling me hot and sexy. What did my school do? They told me I needed to wear clothes for teaching that covered more and to stop dressing up.
  Thanks! I’ll wear yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt from now on, and feel completely ashamed and disgusted with my body as a bonus.
• When I was still in graduate school, and in my practicum experience in an autism support classroom, a middle school student started touching himself inappropriately under the table while I was teaching his small group. I couldn’t see what he was doing from my angle, but my mentor teacher was watching from a few feet away.
  She called me over to talk to me about how my outfit (a cowl-neck sweater, in case you were wondering) was not appropriate while teaching middle school boys. Instead of using it as a teachable moment for the student about how this is not appropriate behavior in school, she blamed me.
• Two male students in my 5th-grade class started a contest to see who could grab my butt as I walked by without getting caught. They told other kids, and I was grabbed continuously in the hallway. The admin gave one of the students detention and told me to stop wearing dresses and only to wear pants.
• I taught at an all-boys catholic school in a major U.S. city. Students called me “sweet tits” in the hallway and put their hands up my skirt. I had a student bait me so the other one could take a picture up my skirt with their cell phone camera. I was humiliated.
  I went to our all-male administration, and nothing was done. Our vice-principal, who was a state senator, told me to stop wearing skirts. I had to get the police involved because they refused to expel the kid.

Teacher Blamed for the Sexual Harassment

Ahh, victim blaming – that old chestnut.

Sometimes when a teacher reports harassment, they are blamed for the incident with the student getting away without a single consequence.

• On my first day of teaching, one of my grade 5 students called me a f*g. I took the student to the principal’s office. After I told the principal what happened, he asked the student how his summer was. After the student was dismissed, the principal told me it was my fault.
• I received death threats and a threatening email that the district refused to track. I was scared for my life, but blamed for not “trying harder with struggling learners.”
• A student sexually assaulted me, and when I went to the admin, I was the one who was under investigation to see if I had instigated it. I had never been more embarrassed and humiliated.
• I had my butt touched and then grabbed on a few separate occasions. I reported it from day one, and the 7th-grade boy was first just asked to apologize. When it got to grabbing, I called the mom for a meeting.
  The parent immediately resorted to teacher blaming. She showed up with her sister, who also works as a teacher in the same district, and started yelling at me and accusing me of being racist.

Sexual Harassment Reports Brushed Off

Lastly, even if a sexual harassment report isn’t completely ignored by the administration, it is often just brushed off as being “normal behavior” or “not a big deal”, when it should be taken much more seriously.

• In my first year of teaching, I had a male student continually make inappropriate comments and always try to touch me (forced hugs, hand on my waist, leaning on me in the hallway). I told the office about it several times, and their response was, “You need to get better at redirecting his attention.”
  It got so bad that I asked the male teachers across the hall from me to check in periodically to make sure I didn’t need help. One of the teachers, the football coach, responded: “Oh, that’s just Mike!” Like oh, okay! I didn’t realize he was special!
• Students comment on my body, my big butt, and generally demean my figure regularly. I told admin. about it, and they said, “Oh, you’re young!”
• A student once told me there was a picture of my butt circulating on Snapchat. When I asked security to look into it, they laughed and said they’d like to see that picture too.
• I had a male student lean down at his desk & take several photos on his phone under my long skirt. I deleted all the photos on his phone and his iPod. When I reported him to his male assistant principal, I was told, “It’s the last day of school, and he is basically graduated, so just let it go.” He walked at graduation and had no consequences.
• A student sexually harassed me, and when I reported it, I was told by the admin, two weeks later, that the student “wouldn’t even remember what he said” and that it wasn’t a big deal.

Teacher Sexual Harassment by Students

Teacher sexual harassment is an occurrence that happens far too often in both public and private school settings. Oftentimes, there is little to no consequence for the action.

The administration desperately needs to listen to teachers when they make these reports and carry out the appropriate consequences for students. Unless we want the teacher shortage to only get worse, schools need to be a safe environment for students AND teachers.

Do what you can. Support your colleagues. Never stop reporting. And whistleblow like an angry coach at football training.

Please, submit your stories to me so I can publish them. Submit them to major press outlets so the nation can know. To stay silent is to stay complicit.

“The only thing necessary for evil men to triumph is for good women to do nothing.”

(That play on words aside, don’t forget to look out for your male colleagues too. The statistics of men being sexually harassed aren’t exactly more heartening.)