After more than a decade teaching in special education settings, Lisa Just was well-practiced at managing her Carver Elementary classroom in a way that kept students safe. She stayed alert to behavioral cues, and when students started getting upset, she stepped in to talk with them, adjust their environment or even move them to designated areas to calm down.
“Building that relationship where they feel safe and they trust you is huge,” she said of her kindergartners who would climb up on her lap and hug her like “sticky bugs.”
Yet, in a class with some acute behavioral needs, students sometimes became so dysregulated they hurt her. Often, she left school with “major purple marks,” the result of students who hit, pinched, bit and scratched her, she said, even if they weren’t intending harm.
On a hot day in September, one of her students grew increasingly agitated, the heat a known trigger for him. Just and other aides attempted to calm him — without success. Finally, as he lashed out at classroom staff, she tried to restrain him — the last resort when a child becomes so dysregulated — but he kept slipping out of her grip.
In an “explosive moment,” the child headbutted Just so hard that part of her vision went dark, she said. She went to the emergency room and learned she had an eye injury that has permanently changed her eyesight, causing floating dots and flashing lights.
Just is among the rising number of Long Beach Unified educators who have been seriously hurt during interactions with students in recent years. It’s a trend that’s alarmed classroom staff.
In February, Peder Larsen, vice president of the local teachers union, told his membership he was “a bit in shock” at the rate of injuries he was witnessing. “I’ve known teachers are getting injured, but I’m seeing it basically every single visit I make. I see teachers with bruises. I see people on the verge of tears.”
Seventy-two LBUSD workers reported being severely hurt by a child in the 2024-25 school year, according to an analysis by the Long Beach Post, a notable spike from 49 three years earlier.
Over that same period, the median cost of student-related claims jumped by $500. The total medical costs incurred by student-related claims increased markedly, too.
To determine this, the Long Beach Post obtained and reviewed data on 800 workers’ compensation claims documenting incidents involving students since the 2021-22 school year. To qualify as “severe,” we counted only claims that reported injuries serious enough to cause employees to miss work or incur significant medical expenses — more than $2,577, representing the top 20% most expensive claims. This scheme captured incidents where students bit, kicked or hit employees, as well as injuries sustained while educators chased eloping students, broke up fights and calmed students down.
Long Beach Unified did not make someone available for an interview about the increase, but the district “is committed to providing a safe learning and working environment for students and staff,” said Elvia Cano, a spokesperson for LBUSD, including through training to “recognize, prevent and manage crisis behaviors.”
Complete workers’ compensation data were not available for the recently concluded 2025-26 school year, but in interviews with the Long Beach Post, many LBUSD teachers said they’re continuing to see more students acting out. One elementary school teacher, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation for speaking up, said that in her last two years of teaching, “student behaviors were off the charts.” On a daily basis, she was bit and pinched, had her hair pulled and was spat on.
“A behavior is a form of communication,” she said, underscoring that she reacts compassionately and tries to address students’ underlying needs. Yet it doesn’t change the fact that “we’re also getting beaten up all day,” she said.
These experiences are consistent with data from a recent national survey of public school educators, in which 76% of survey respondents said the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected student behavior and development. As Long Beach schools reopened after pandemic closures, the total number of workers’ compensation claims involving students spiked. That total fell the following year, before climbing again to reach a slightly lower peak in 2024-25, the most recent year of complete data.
“Students are struggling,” said Milton Duena, assistant executive director of the teachers union, who helps oversee grievances, including those related to teacher injuries. Students may be facing food and housing insecurity or may need medical or mental health care they’re not getting, he said.
The rise in challenging behaviors has coincided with reduced classroom support, teachers told the Post.
Just requested more help for the child who injured her, including a thorough assessment to identify how to support him when he got upset. Instead, emails she provided show that her principal suggested she add visual schedules to the classroom, hold morning meetings and better communicate with staff — all of which Just said were already part of her approach. The response left her frustrated: “No one’s supporting us, keeping us safe,” Just said. “No one’s helping this child who needs help.”
Cano, the LBUSD spokesperson, said that each time a workplace injury occurs, the district examines the circumstances to determine necessary next steps and supports.
When Long Beach, like other districts, saw increased needs after the pandemic, it expanded training and student supports, aided by state and federal funds, Cano said. Many of these temporary relief dollars have since expired, prompting the district to scale back student mental health resources.
Jola Lao, who teaches kindergarten and first grade in a special education classroom at Barton Elementary, said she made numerous appeals for more aides to manage behavior in her class, as well as better training and equipment — like doors that prevent students from leaving or running away from class, called eloping.
Emails reviewed by the Post show Lao kept careful records of student behavior to support her requests for additional trained adults to help with everything from toileting assistance to supervision of students who left campus and wandered into the street. Nevertheless, she said, her requests were denied. Soon after, Lao went on leave due to intense stress and burnout, she said.
Part of the problem is a chronically underfunded public education system, said Duena of the teachers union. In a 2025-26 budget memo, the district wrote that “costs associated with behavior intervention support for students, especially at the elementary level, have increased fourfold since 2021-22.” The average cost of a 1:1 behavior aide is approximately $70,000, the district said.
These positions are notoriously hard to fill and have a high turnover, in part because of the nature of the work, said Claudia Sosa-Valderrama at a March school board meeting. The district outsources some of these jobs to agencies, but LBUSD teachers who spoke with the Post said sometimes agency aides arrive without adequate training. Just, the teacher who sustained an eye injury, said many of her aides don’t know how to safely restrain students, leaving Just as the only one who can step in at a crucial moment.
Less support in the classroom means student behaviors escalate, said Kecia Woods, who taught third and fourth grade in a special education classroom at Madison Elementary until she retired this year because “I didn’t want to go out hurt,” she said.
In the 2025-26 year alone, she said she filed four or five workers’ compensation claims. Not all of them were for serious injuries, she said, but in the past, she was flattened by a student’s punch and sustained a wrist injury from students that took a year to heal, she said.
Getting injured is assumed to be part of teachers’ jobs, Woods said, adding, “And it’s not. It shouldn’t be.”
