Iowa City schools must do more to protect teachers and staff from violence in the classroom, following a settlement with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The school district has until the end of 2019 to develop and implement a new policy to discourage violence in schools and until the end of October to create a "crisis response team."

The new deadlines were imposed after OSHA investigated a 2018 accusation of workplace violations. The agency ruled in May of 2018 that the school district failed to protect teachers, para-educators and substitutes at Penn Elementary from students' violent outbursts. OHSA found the work conditions at Penn Elementary were in violation of state law and fined the school district $6,681, an amount which was later reduced to $1,500.

The specifics of the allegations — nor who specifically brought the initial complaint — have not been released, and Iowa City school officials declined to comment for this article Tuesday, stating that relevant school officials were booked in meetings or out of office. But the OSHA ruling references instances where students kicked, punched, pushed and bit staff in the classroom, playgrounds and buses.

OSHA determined the school district did not provide assistance when students assaulted staff members, or threatened to do so. The agency also ruled the school district did not take actions to prevent or eliminate workplace violence.

Among other recommendations, the ruling called for a "zero-tolerance policy for workplace violence, meaning, no threatening or violent behavior is acceptable and no violent incident will be ignored."

The school district initially contested the ruling in August of 2018. In a board workshop meeting last week, school officials explained that the violation puts the school district in a difficult position, balancing state workplace safety requirements with federal requirements for a student's learning environment. Superintendent Steve Murley said, unlike with other employment situations, it may be impossible to completely eliminate violent behavior in schools.

"We can't eliminate that, unless we eliminate the people that come into our schools," Murley told the school board. "We can't eliminate the behavior. We can be prepared for it if it happens, but we can't eliminate it."

Settlement requirements

The school district reached a settlement this May when the fine was dropped to $1,500. In exchange the school district agreed to stop contesting the violation and to enact a laundry list of changes.

The school district agreed to implement a policy to "discourage and eliminate threatening acts of violence," including an online module which details how staff use physical intervention and seclusion and a protocol for monitoring playground time. All staff must have training on the new policy by Dec. 31.

By Oct. 31, the school district must begin providing an immediate contact for staff members who find themselves in an emergency situation or a potentially violent situation. This entails creating a crisis-response team, though the settlement does not specify who would sit on this team or the logistics of how such a team would operate.

The settlement requires the school district to document and analyze incidents of violent behavior on campuses. As part of this, the school district must analyze instances where kids are placed in seclusion.

The practice of secluding students — particularly the practice of using small padded spaces — has been a controversial subject in Iowa, particularly after the Iowa Department of Education determined the Iowa City school district violated state and federal law in its use of seclusion rooms in 2017.

Read: 'Nothing changed': Movement to change rules around seclusion rooms faces setback

Since then, Iowa City has removed the 6-by-6 padded boxes, but it still has designated seclusion spaces on some campuses to accommodate some students and doubled down on a trending approach to discipline, called Positive Behavior Intervention Systems.

As part of the settlement, the PBIS team will review monthly data on seclusion, including the number of students placed in seclusion, the location, time of day and type of behavior or infraction that led staff to put the student in seclusion.

The settlement did not require the school district to accept blame for the cited allegations.

Murley told board members administrators do their best to ensure staff are trained on how to deescalate a situation and how to react when a student has an outburst. But barring completely separating teachers from students, they cannot fully mitigate the chance a teacher is hit by a student.

"One of our frustrations in dealing with OSHA is that so many of the things they ask you to correct are static. ... They want you to stay 10 feet away from that electrical panel, I can put a line of tape down and say, 'don't cross that,'" he said. "Kids are not predictable like that."