Students Break Teachers Neck Over iPod
02.26.07 - 11:19am
All right folks, we know the iPod is sweet, great, awesome, fun, extremely hip and everything else cool - but breaking a teachers neck cause you wanted to take to listen during class! That’s taking things a little far don’t you think. Especially a 60 year old teacher, how absolutely utterly despicable.
It’s exactly what happened in Germantown, a neighborhood in Philadelphia, when a 15-year old and a 17-year-old assaulted Frank Burk, a 60-year-old math and photography teacher, after he took the iPod away during class. After class the 17-year-old student roughly demanded the iPod be returned, then the 15 year-old joined in the struggle. One pushed him and the other threw a punch. The teacher hit head as he fell.
The result was two broken bones in his neck, which fortunately did not result in paralysis.
“You could hear it break. You could hear when he fell on the ground,” said Synquetta Reid, a student who saw the incident. “He fell … on his face. After that, they turned him over and there was all this blood.”
The attackers fled but were caught later by the police and charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, and reckless endangerment. The 15 year old ninth grader had been previously expelled and was up for expulsion again due to previous behavior. Paul Vallas, the district’s chief executive officer said both students will be expelled.
“This is a really heinous act,” Vallas said. “It was very deliberate. It was premeditated … We have it on tape.”
In spite of the broken neck Burd apologized for missing work as well as being there to take pictures at a fund raiser to raise money for a new library and to honor formerstudents who had done the school proud. He was still in intensive care on Friday.
Principal Dr. Rose Ford said, “You know what he said? ‘There goes my 100-percent attendance.’ That’s what he said because he never misses a day.”
Students were missing him as well and were shocked that he was targeted. “I didn’t believe it was Mr. Burd because I wouldn’t think anyone would do something like that to him,” said one girl.
Vallas says Burd is a legendary teacher, having retired from and returned to Germantown for a second tour of teaching Math. “He’s not only a terrific Math teacher, but he’s also the resident photographer, always at school events, and the kids love him.”
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