A Texas assistant principal who was permanently blinded in one eye after a violent attack by a student says she has forgiven her attacker but remains deeply frustrated with the system, believing that it failed them both.
56-year-old Candra Rogers was injured in August when a sixth-grade student threw a wooden hanger which struck her in the eye and knocked it out of its socket.
The veteran teacher has been unable to return to work since the attack and is planning to have her blinded eye replaced with a prosthetic in January.
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“I have headaches every single day, every day,” Rogers told KWTX. “There are some days I can’t get out of bed.”
The student has however not apologized for the assault but is no longer enrolled in Corsicana schools. Despite all of this, Rogers said she has chosen to let it go.
“I’ve forgiven him. I had to,” she said. “I am angry with the student. I am angry with the student’s parents. I am angry with our state system because no educator should go to work and end up being airlifted to a hospital.”
The attack occurred when Rogers was called for assistance in a behavioral classroom during lunch.
She found the student involved in a fight and tried to intervene to die down the situation, yet little did she know a huge scare was coming.
“He found a hanger and he threw that, and I couldn’t block that fast enough. It caught me in my eye and knocked it out,” she recalled. “It was pouring, blood was pouring. When I touched my eye and looked at it, it was just covered in blood.”
Despite the severity of her injury, Rogers remained composed and left the classroom to call her husband for help. “I stumbled out of the classroom because I was holding my eye and bleeding,” she said. “My husband actually got here and saw me with my eye hanging out.”
Days after the incident, the veteran teacher now permanently blinded held a press conference to criticize the lack of resources for students with behavioral challenges.
She blamed Texas Governor Greg Abbott for what she views as a lack of school funding and called for reforms to Chapter 37 of the Texas Education Code, which governs student discipline.
“There should be reform so that no other teacher, principal, or educator is ever put in this position,” she said. “Mr. Abbott, release the funds because you are also culpable for what happened to me.”
Rogers also stated that violence in schools is a broader issue that needs attention to prevent incidents like hers from unfolding.
“Chairs do not, should not be thrown in school, but that happens every day across the country. That’s not okay. School is a place to come to learn, to thrive, to achieve things you didn’t think you could. It’s not a place for ducking chairs or hangers.”
She also urged parents to take greater responsibility for their children, stating that many of these kids are dealing with personal problems. “Pay attention to your children. Give them the attention that they need. What we, as educators, are encountering are children who have been raised by electronics,” she said.
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Rogers has yet to decide whether she will return to work but said she misses her school community. “If there is one that I can help, then the one,” she said.
