In the second fatal shooting of a public school teacher in the U.S. this week, Massachusetts authorities charged a 14-year-old high school student in the murder of a math teacher after finding the teacher’s body in woods near the school in Danvers, Ma., reports the Christian Science Monitor. The student, Philip Chism, pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail for killing Colleen Ritzer, 24. Police had issued a missing-child report for Chism, who had recently moved to the area from Tennessee.
A Nevada middle school teacher was shot dead by a 12-year-old student on Monday. “We will probably never know all the factors that accumulate to unleash this kind of violence, but we must commit to doing all we can to make sure students and educators are safe in our schools,” said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, a labor union for teachers, in reaction to this week’s incidents.