As the Texas Legislature continues to stall in taking action on the numerous anti-bullying bills introduced this session, this story posted Monday on WFAA.com proves once again that our children really aren’t safe in school — sometimes even when there is a teacher standing right by them.
Michael Milczanowksi
WFAA.com reports that Seagoville High School sophomore Michael Milczanowksi was attacked and beaten up by a fellow student in his geometry class as the teacher, who isn’t identified, stands by and watches without even trying to intervene. At least not physically. Other students videotaped the attack as it happened, and you can watch that video below.
Dallas Independent School District officials have said the incident is being investigated, but the teacher’s union is supporting the teacher. Alliance/AFT representative Rena Honeo told WFAA: “Teachers have intervened in the past. They have been injured. They have not been able to return to work. They have been reprimanded for intervening. So there is a huge question mark as to what’s truly appropriate.”
Meanwhile Michael Milczanowksi has left Seagoville High. The report doesn’t say if he is going to school somewhere else. The report also doesn’t say why the student attacked Michael, who said he had felt threatened at school for some time, and it doesn’t mention bullying, either.
I am not saying this has anything to do with LGBT issues in any way, shape or form. But I think this is obviously about one student being bullied — physically bullied — and about a teacher standing by and letting it happen. If this isn’t proof enough for lawmakers that we need some kind of legislation to protect our children, then I don’t know what it would take.
The teacher should be fired! The student doing the hitting belongs in jail!
Okay, let me take this one. 1st of all I’m from the Seagoville area, and I can’t tell you the time I went to school in the area, i got picked on, on, and on, even people teasing me for suddenly “Being Gay” The people are just so arrogant and just don’t understand anything. Even in the neighborhood, it’s worse and at times I don’t feel safe walking in the so call “hood” Police take so long to get there and its nothing but ghettoness. Thankfully I didn’t go to Seagoville HS, and it makes me even more blessed that I went to Booker T., now agian with my political views that I have stated here, is the so called “Anti-Bullying” Policy that should of been in placed when I was going to school to in effect? This part would be where my tax dollars would go to a other school district. At the same time, What should the teacher do? Would he be breaking the law if he were to break it up? The dude did the right thing and went somewhere else, the school is just going down and down. That could be why we don’t get anything down there, because the schools is where people would drive away from. Well thats my 2 cents, anyone other comments?
There are comments that one of threaten and group of girls and the other was trying to depend them. I know Mr. Muse and I know that he is an amazing teacher. That’s is exactly what he is a teacher. Not the security guard.
Sickening. The student being attacked did nothing to escalate the attack, and the teacher just stood there like a post. I understand the union will defend his actions, but to just watch and do nothing is outrageous.
Meanwhile the Texas Legislature is doing exactly the same thing…NOTHING!
Oh yea, they did pass a bill mandating sonograms for women who are seeking abortions! Bunch of useless idiots in Austin, all of them!
I agree the teacher should be fired, but I’ve heard from eye witnesses that the student who got hit had been antagonizing the boy into it. The boy was not innocent in any way shape or form. He was pretty smart for not throwing a punch though. The student that was attacked has also being trying to start a fight with a good friend of mine. I think that this is injustice. Sure, the student shouldn’t have hit him at all, but he was being harassed daily, eventually it builds up.
I agree the teacher should be fired, but I’ve heard from eye witnesses that the student who got hit had been antagonizing the boy into it. The boy was not innocent in any way shape or form. He was pretty smart for not throwing a punch though. The student that was attacked has also being trying to start a fight with a good friend of mine. I think that this is injustice. Sure, the student shouldn’t have hit him at all, but he was being harassed daily, eventually it builds up. Also, the “Victim” pulled a box cutting knife on a pregnant girl at the school.
read the comments here for what the other students have to say https://www.wfaa.com/news/education/Teacher-looks-on-during-classroom-fight-at-Seagoville-HS-121541974.html
This takes the cake. I taught jr. high for 30 years and broke up several fights — girls were the worst. Yes, there were several fights I didn’t physically break up because the boys fighting were over 6 feet and I didn’t want to get my bones broken; but, I damn sure didn’t just stand and watch. At least YELL at them, and order one of the other kids to go get the principal. This teacher is a disgrace and should be fired. The unions should not support a teacher who didn’t even bother to DO ANYTHING! Dude, get your cell out and dial 9-11………….at the very, very least SAY SOMETHING. How yelling “STOP!” to the thug in your class? To the kid beaten, you should press assault charges and then when the brave little felon goes to prison, go visit, take him a Pay Day bar and smile. ;0) And people wonder kids today are not getting an education in the classroom. It’s a Felon Factory.
To Hardy Haberman above, I could not agree with your final statement more. The party of “less government” sure has a penchant for butting into the private lives of others. And we all know what they’ll be doing when their own little Janie gets knocked up. The laws are always for the other guy.
The teacher should be fired and the attackers should be fully prosecuted under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Law
OK … let me get this straight. a kid gets beat up and you are pissed off at the TEACHER?!?!?!
come on now. what do you want the teacher to do? i am a teacher myself in an inner-city school district in Detroit, MI and fights have broken out in my classroom on more than one occasion. while i do not sit idly by because i have security resources at my disposal (the one thing we DO have), i would NEVER intervene in a beat down. and we are trained to NEVER intervene. it’s not only a lawsuit waiting to happen, it’s also a great way to hop on a suicide mission.
notice how no one says ANYTHING about the kids FILMING it. THE KIDS ARE FILMING THE BEAT DOWN! this is sick! this is what my kids do, too. you can NOT blame the culture of violence and indifference on the teacher. it starts at home and is perpetuated in peer groups.
leave the teacher alone. notice the report doesn’t say anything about the teacher cheering the students on or encouraging them. he’s trying to keep as many people as possible safe – and the quickest way to do that is to STAY out of it and GET HELP.
trust me, Detroit is as bad as it gets. you can’t save everyone. especially not when the fight is occurring. the problem isn’t the teacher – it’s the violent students. they clearly aren’t learning it from the teacher.
I’m from Seagoville. My family is from Seagoville. I haven’t been there in years. I don’t know if people there are more acdcepting now than in the 80s when I wentto that very school. I can say this…. a fight in a classroom is intolerable. A t5eacher standing by and allowing a fight in his classroom because he fears for his job has more problems than worrying about his employment. Teachers have to teach. And one of the thing we ALL have to do is decide when something is wrong to stand up.This “teacher” is a coward, and I’m sad that the proud Dragons have fallen so far. Even back in the 80s when I attended, someone would have intervened in this. Shame on you SHS and DISD for allowing this. And shame on this :teacher” for not teaching the fundamental difference between right and wrong. How much do you wanna bet this :teacher” was a coach?
I totally agree with Emma Lee, taught in Urban Schools for 26 years and the Teacher should have gotten help..a teacher could be seriously hurt by getting physically involved and then told “Why did you do that ” by Administration…the butt head should have made the call or sent a student for help..
Silence, in either words or actions, is consent. You have to intervene when bullying is occurring.
Not a security guard!!!! Good God. How about a simple human with morals. I thought the teachers were all about the “Children” I thought when we sent our children to school, we could expect them to be safe. I take it then in this school no one is safe, because the teachers won’t do anything. Teacher should be fired and the whole staff and administration should also be looked at.
I would agree with M.Helfmann! What happened to the morals and values? Standing up for whats right! We have our men overseas fighting for this very thing, while we still struggle to fix it within. The sad reality here folks…. Our kids aren’t “safe” anywhere they go! Unfortunately some kids aren’t even safe in their own homes.The devil is at every corner. We have SOME teachers out there who would sleep with their students and priests out there who molest them! Why the surprise? Just think if the kid had a gun! His whole class would be dead.
The teacher CANNOT be reprimanded or terminated because silly unions protect his actions. They’re more concerned with their bottom line than anything else. Their comment about worrying about the teacher’s safety is simply cover for the true concern of getting sued should he have gotten involved. It is true that there are times teachers truly cannot get involved other than to call for help because the fighting students are more physically threatening. But this teacher didn’t even CALL FOR HELP! Just stood and watched. Failing to call for help WOULD seem to rise to reprimand/termination. In the end, I don’t care. HELP THE KID! Worry about liability and all that jazz later. What has happened to our morals? Those who filmed it and did not intervene or call for help should also be disciplined. The attacker should be criminally prosecuted.
Okay, so where is Joel Burns where you need him? Ohhh, this stuff donesn’t matter to him. He has other imporant stuff to do. Like touring across the nation to buy his city council seat.
@Chris Lemond- And, no Seagoville and it’s people have even gone worse with accpecting people. Even I have to deal like 10 Year-Olds calling me Gay. It’s the Ghetto people that just made it worse.
Character assassination of the assault victim on a website comments thread like this one has no credibility whatsoever. People can comment under the name they please – and be duplicitous in the comments they make. The parent of a bully, for instance, could very easily come onto a comments thread like this one to badmouth their bully child’s victim. Certainly it would not have been against the law for the teacher in this classroom to call 911. Most schools, alas, would rather allow a student to be assaulted and injured, then to have the police come onto school grounds. The teacher did not even say “Stop hitting him!” This is only speculation but perhaps when the harassment was non-physical the teacher ignored that too, instead of following the law and anti-harassment policies that say he should have reported that non-physical harassment to school administration. Were it properly addressed in time, the attacker here would not have been in a position to attack as he did.
The media took one side of this story and ran with it.Michael is a bully and was calling other students out to fight.He even made the comment, after the fight, that he wasn’t very impressed and maybe the other student should have hit him harder.Does this sound like a victim to you.He pulled out a box cutter on a female student and threatened his ex-girlfriend.He is a bully and wants to play the victim.Shame on the media for bashing Mr. Muse, he is a teacher, not a referee.Why doesn’t the media do a little bit of investigation and look into Michael’s past at SHS.How about they apologize to Mr. Muse for making him look like a monster.He is an excellent teacher.Michael “dished it out but couldn’s take it.”You should stop and think…will you be made to look like a monster like Mr. Muse if you don’t step into a knife fight or take a bullet for someone.Michael’s mom was even at the school screaming at another student while her son was also taunting that student…great parenting right!!!(Insert sarcasm)Why was his aunt on TV and not his mother?His mom was trying to fight that student.I sure wish someone would have got that on video as well.There are frequent fights at ALL DISD schools…stop airing a bunch of crap!!
Teachers are responsible for reporting violations of the Student Code of Conduct (not to mention, of federal and state and local laws) to school administration officials. Hearsay of what happened before, during and after this particular attack is of no value. It is against the law to carry out assault and battery against somebody, simply because they have said something to you which you don’t like. Commentors here with their own motives want readers to believe that the battery victim seen in the video “said” something to “provoke” the assault and battery. That is not how the law views assault and battery, FYI.
@Emma Lee and Big Joe – If the guy had done something….. ANYTHING… other than stand there like nothing was wrong, I wouldn’t judge him so harshly. I don’t necessarily expect him to get in there and mix it up. I *do* expect him to, oh I dunno, *report the incident*…. maybe even call a cop or two.
And while we’re at it, were it not for the video these kids took on their phones, this conversation wouldn’t be happening at all because *nobody* would know about it. Sick? Perhaps. Without these videos, though, the problem stays hidden and goes on.
Ok people. First of all there are two sides to every story. I am sure to some degree that all parties involved where guilty to some degree. The young man hitting guilty hum yes! The boy standing there was taking the punches? I am sure that he did some sort of something to provoke it! Does that mean he deserved it? NO!!! No tolerance for violence!!! The teacher standing and watching the fight and saying absolutely nothing GUILTY! I am not saying that he should have broken up the fight. But he should have used his voice and sent another student to get help. If you say he is the great teacher that he is. Then he would be teaching you how to handle these types of situations. My mother taught for 28 years. She is a paraplegic. She herself has broken up many fights by just yelling!!! I am embarrassed by the people that can’t step back and look at the overall picture of this situation. And to start dragging other people into the mix of this (i.e. Joel Burns) REALLY PEOPLE!!!!
Mr. Muse did tell them to stop…watch the video again. Too bad the audio isn’t better cause you’ll hear him saying “STOP”! He’s not a babysitter!! Some people on other websites are saying Mr. Muse is prejudice…that’s not the case and I’m caucasian okay. The point is, fighting should not have been allowed but it was going to happen anyway because of the constant taunting. People that run their mouths shouldn’t. The young man that beat Michael up had been verbally taunted during class that day…Michael kept calling him “gay”. Michael was told several times to stop saying that and after 5 times, Michael was told that if he says it again he’s gonna get punched. Michael, knowing what was going to happen, said it again and got beat up. MIchael has been in multiple fights during this school year and has been suspended and has been in ISS…in school suspension…several times. Now tell me, is it everyone elses fault that he was ALWAYS in some trouble. I know this for sure, if my children acted that way and I found out, I would discipline them myself and be a frequent visitor at their school to keep a close eye on them. My kids aren’t perfect but they don’t do that. Yes, Mr. Muse should have reported the incident…I do agree that he should have. But, he is 1 person and can’t control the actions of the students in his class. This has been blown up so much and Mr. Hinojosa is wanting to make Mr. Muse the “focus” because he’s doing an extremely poor job and wants the focus off of him. He needs to be replaced and someone that actually cares should take over. We have had so many people in DISD, like Mr. Hinojosa, that only care about money and raises and power…how about we get someone in there that can make a change. I say we have more school police in these schools and if they wanna act stupid, cuff them and get them out of there. It was a fight where only 1 person was throwing punches and that’s sad in itself. I am not a fighter and my children have never been in any trouble at school. I feel that Michael should have been removed from the classroom because of his constant taunting. And yes, he’s afraid to go back to school because he lied on television. I’d be afraid if I were him, too. Just remember, there are always 2 sides to every story. Trouble makers should be removed from public school and either home school or go to private schools…too sad because people pay for private school and their children will have to suffer. Tell me this, if he returns to another public school, what are people going to say when the same problem keeps occuring over and over again…is it the schools or the student. Parents, parent your children and teach them what is right and wrong…children aren’t always going to do exactly what their parents say and at times will make their own decisions. Maybe Michaels parents tried but I don’t think so much, his mom was acting just as bad as he was at the school. If she had of struck the student that she and her son were taunting, do you thing it would have made the news or do you think anyone would know about SHS. I don’t think so. I think the media should interview his mom.
@Dragon Parent- I agree with you. I’m from Seagoville too. I was Mr. Muse’s student and I can tell all of you that he is a great man. You don’t know him so you don’t know the whole side of the story. You judge too easy. Did you guys know that Micheal was never bullied? And that he threatened girls with a knife. Yes, the other kid was wrong for hitting him but Micheal was always looking for a fight. The media doesn’t even tell the whole story because you can hear him say stop but the media cut it off. You say fire him, fire him but you don’t know how much this school needs him. He is actually the best educator I’ve seen. He is a smart man. Honestly, I went to this this school for 4 years and I never ever felt threatened. I went to several different schools before this and Seagoville was the safety I ever felt at a school.
this kid should have stood up for himself. he is indicative of this sissy generation of teenagers that are being ‘raised’ these days. no can give you your self respect you need to take and defend it!!!!!
I did hear Mr. Muse say stop. It was on the news again last night on Channel 8 and you could hear him say stop. Mr. Hinojosa is putting all the focus on Mr. Muse right now because so much of the focus has been on him and the sorry job that he has been doing…Hinojosa you need to step down. Students, please do us a favor. Please do no post these fights on youtube. There was going to be a fight, that’s what Michael wanted, but please don’t post this stuff again. If you wish to video it, well whatever floats your boat, but since the video was posted, MIchael got his rear on the news and is able to play the victim and now Mr. Muse is in trouble. I really wish the media would stop making a spectacle of SHS. There are a lot of DISD schools and, I promise you, there are fights at each and every one of them.