More than 65% of Brazilian teachers say they have suffered some form of aggression in the classroom or school environment, says research Getty Images/BBC Professor Marta cannot forget what she describes as the most aggressive situation she has experienced in her 50 years of life and 26 years of teaching. In March 2023, she was threatened with death by the father of a 1st year elementary school student. "He called the school and said he was 'going to kill that slut'", recalls the teacher from a municipal school in the West Zone of São Paulo, who preferred to have her real name preserved in this report. "Since where we work is a community, these things cannot be neglected, because the law there is different." She says that the student's father was known for "having a certain reputation in the community" (in other words, being involved in crime, she explains) and was dissatisfied with his son's school performance, who, at 6 years old, had difficulty understanding his homework and was not adapting well to the transition from kindergarten to elementary school. The family blamed the teacher for the problems. Marta found out about the death threat from the school coordinator, when she was already on her second job, at another school in the region. That night, she says she filed a police report, accompanied only by her husband. "I spent the night at the police station and I felt very alone, there was no one from management with me", reports the teacher. "The next day, I couldn't go back to school, so I went to the doctor. I told the psychiatrist everything that happened, and she immediately took me away." Out of fear, Marta chose not to take legal action against the attacker. The city government removed her from the school where the incident occurred, and she completed the school year in another unit. "So, my losses weren't that many, but my psychological problem was horrible, because I didn't know who I was dealing with", says the teacher, who lives close to the community where the school is located. "My room has a window at the front, and I even asked my husband to change rooms, because I thought I might be attacked. I was terrified of sleeping." The South region records the highest number of teachers reporting violence in schools. The case of the teacher from São Paulo is not an isolated incident. A survey by the Centro do Professorado Paulista (CPP) with 1,144 teachers reveals that 65% of those interviewed say they have already suffered some type of aggression in the classroom or in the school environment. Verbal violence is the most common, representing 71% of aggressions, followed by psychological and moral (58%), institutional (27%) and physical (19%). Brazil also leads the ranking of violence against teachers in a survey carried out in 2024 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which interviewed 280 thousand teachers and school principals from 55 countries. Nationally, 47% of teachers report being bullied or verbally abused by students as a source of stress, compared to a global average of around 18%. The topic of violence against educators returned to public debate after the case of teacher Michele Ramos, from São José dos Campos, who filed a police report after students placed a glass slide in her glass of water during class at a municipal school. BBC News Brasil contacted the Department of Education and Citizenship of São José dos Campos to find out the measures taken in relation to the case, but did not receive a response until the publication of this report. Professor Michele Ramos, from São José dos Campos, registered a police report after students placed a glass slide in her glass of water Reproduction/Instagram Multiple forms of violence Psychologist Renata Paparelli, professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP), works with clinical care for teachers who are victims of violence in the São Paulo municipal network. She states, based on her experience, that teachers are subject to multiple forms of violence in their daily lives. “We usually say that there is school violence, violence at school, and violence against the school,” says Paparelli. Violence at school, explains the psychologist, is the result of public policies little adapted to the characteristics of the population to be served. "They come from the top down, incorporating projects without offering the minimum conditions for their implementation", says the psychologist. "One of the examples, in most schools or in many schools, are the projects to include PCDs [people with disabilities] in regular classrooms. Far from being against this idea, but we all know that there must be conditions for this implementation." Violence at school is the best known and, with some frequency, makes it into the news, says Paparelli. "It's the students against the educators, and also the management that is not very open or powerless in the face of the demands of the educators", he explains. Finally, violence against schools includes the depredation of school property and the devaluation of schools as an important institution for the education of children and adolescents. "The school and its educators have been gaining less and less prestigious space [in society]", he observes. In recent years, the National Observatory of Violence against Educators at the Universidade Federal Fluminense (Onve-UFF) has also monitored the advancement of persecution against teachers, a form of violence that is expressed in practices such as censorship, attempts at intimidation, exposure on social media and legal harassment. According to a study carried out by the group with more than 3 thousand educators, 61% of basic education teachers and 55% of higher education teachers say they have already experienced this type of violence. Lack of adequate structure to serve students with disabilities is pointed out by a specialist as one of the forms of violence in public schools Belém City Hall Punch to the chest and severed finger Cited by the PUC-SP teacher as one of the forms of violence in the school environment, the lack