TO PROVIDE A REMEDY TO VICTIMS OF SCHOOL CRIME

WHEREAS, the incidence and severity of violent crime in the public schools is growing throughout the nation; and

WHEREAS, society, through its courts, is reluctant to visit upon youthful offenders that severity of punishment reserved for adult violators of the criminal law; and

WHEREAS, this compassionate reluctance has encouraged within the minds of some students the illusion of impunity, whence their acts of violence issue; and

WHEREAS, school attendance being on the one hand considered a right enjoins concomitant responsibilities upon the possessors thereof, and on the other hand attendance, by being compulsory, presupposes an assurance of safety of life and limb for those whose presence is thus required; and

WHEREAS, such assurance of safety cannot now be in good faith provided by the administrations of many schools:

RESOLVED, that the AFT urge locals to include contract provisions to protect employees in cases of assault against person or property, arising from their duties; and

RESOLVED, that state federations and locals press for legislation to provide full compensation for such assaults.