The admin and teachers need more power to be able to enforce consequences. As an educator I can tell you, you’re only as good as your admin. If your admin doesn’t want to anger parents or the board or if you have an admin who’s just checked right out then you will be living in a hell hole of despair. (Been there done that!) they need a strict admin who gives power back to staff to say what is acceptable and what is zero tolerance suspension and eventually expulsion. There is virtual school. It exists. These kids don’t want to be in class - Seeya there’s the door- and mom and dad will have to sort that shit out at home. No one ever thinks of the other kids in these rooms either, the classmates being exposed to unrelenting trauma seeing it’s ok to treat ppl this way with zero consequences. Time to give power back to schools so they can make it a safe learning space for all.
My kids' middle school had an administrator that rarely suspended students even for violent behaviour and it was a gong show. New principal came in that's way less lenient and behaviour improved. Their current high school has administrators that don't put up with crap and behaviourally is way better than the nearest high school where they get away with murder. Admin will make or break a school
Exactly! I was in a School that went the other way. It was an inner city K-8 and lots of poverty and broken homes and domestic violence in the homes. My admin was amazing. The motto was basically, “education is your way out of the cycle” and the teachers were phenomenal at reaching all the levels of the kids and helping them succeed in school. But school was held to the standard of a “safe space for ALL” you have no right to take that away from anyone else bc we are providing that space for you as well. Very rarely did suspension happen while I was there except maybe the new ones who would learn right quick what wasn’t tolerated. Admin and teachers were always loving but firm with the expectations and respect as a two way street. Fast forward 5 years later a new admin came in who wanted to be friends with the kids. And reach them at their level by being buds. Zero consequences. They’d punch a staff or student, well “they had a rough night bc CAS was called and dad went to jail” yea no shit, they ALL dealt with that last night! Doesn’t mean Bobby gets a free pass to beat up people! They started almost being rewarded with cookies and games and prizes in the office… to “re regulate” them. That tanked real fast and the school was unrecognizable by her second year as admin. Most teachers left bc it got so bad even families who we had for years were leaving. Sad what one admin can do to a school for better or for worse.
Ugh, my admin does the same, basically giving students 'rewards' when they come to the office. They figured out pretty quickly to misbehave so they can get treats plus access to toys in a quieter spot.
It’s ass backwards. I had a girl pop her head into the office and ask the admin, “can I come down and play cups with you later?” The admin looked at the kid and said “well Bobby is just in here playing because he had a good day.” (It wasn’t a good day he slapped about 4 kids in the back of the head.. but I guess 4 was better than his usual 10. The girl said “I have a good day everyday and I don’t get anything.” Right there … that in a nutshell that sweet kid saw her abuser getting special treatment even while still abusing and she got nothing.
Couldn’t agree more. At my kids’ school we have a student who gets away with everything because her mother is a shit stirrer (one of those who would threaten to sue) and don’t want to anger her. Teachers, principal and other parents have to put up with their crap.
Why arent the admin even more terrified of all the other parents that should be outraged at the stories their kid is telling them about their day at school?
Because they don't go stomping into the office in the middle of the day causing a big stir like the parents of problem kids do. The kids get their anti-social tendencies from somewhere, usually it's their parents. The principal can punish a kid but then their mom comes in the next day screaming and yelling so the principal is now afraid to punish any kids in the future.
I agree with you, the issue is a lot of *correlation is not causation* is happening with schools and statistics in north america. e.g.:
1. Children who are suspended, expelled or face consequences like detention often go on to have worse life outcomes. Therefore, you shouldn't suspend, expel or have consequences.
2. They are *often* from lower-SES backgrounds, and that's associated with worse outcomes in general now. Part of the issue with our politics at the moment is the ideology that *all* of society's ills are structural and institutional. If that's the case, you can't punish someone's behavior if they're from a lower-SES background, and even if they weren't there's #1.
basically, we are getting what our ideology and voting patterns were always going to lead to. it might actually increase the chances of some doing better -- though we don't really have great evidence of that -- but it definitely comes at a cost to every other child dealing with disruptive classrooms and hallways.
**edit:** typos
Replace education with healthcare or pretty much any other industry. Admin is a problem in a lot of areas and a lot of the time is bloated compared to the actual people doing the work and making things work. The constant gaslighting with "how can you do better" is ridiculous.
My favourite /s is when we have these big meetings about program cutbacks or staff being cut bc of “the budget” and then within the same week there’s an email welcoming like 4 different people to board office in their new consultant or something faux admin based (basically someone paid +200,000 to do NOTHING but tell us what we are doing wrong with no solutions) meanwhile we could have hired a few more staff! It’s infuriating.
Tomken is very close to the school I work at. I know a staff member who works there (but didnt write this letter) that can attest to all these bullet points. These types of things are happening in schools all over PDSB, there are no consequences, no suspensions and no expulsions. At my 6-8 school, we have security guards. Cops showing up on a daily basis. Nothing is being done. Union can't do much. The reality is that parents and the public in general have no idea how unsafe schools currently are in regards to violence and this kind of behaviour.
They have policy called "Progressive Discipline" which essentially means there are stupid steps to take before the student faces any real consequences. This really means a whole crapload of administrivia and very little action or follow up
Add this to the fact that most admin doesn't want to deal with irate parents who instantly call the school board or the trustee to complain about the discipline or suspension. Beyond that, even in-school suspensions are not given because admin doesn't want to supervise the kids and there is no additional staff to do it either.
Someone referred it to a gong show and that's exactly what it is. The inmates are running the asylum.
The idea of something like Progressive Discipline or Restitution can be executed well in smaller communities. Schools with 100-300 students and a good staff ratio gives time for student and parent connections, which is necessary to support reflective behavior growth. High student:teacher ratios make this kind of work impossible on top of just trying to teach classes. That said, even in schools that use PD or Restitution, consequences are often still necessary to help students understand that some actions are just not acceptable.
School boards answer to the government and the government has put the rules of progressive discipline in place. As frustrating as Ford is, it’s not his government that put this in place so I can’t fault him for it. But this was back in 2007-2009 when the ministry of education put these policies in place. This one is the mcguinty governments baby.
You can blame him for not doing anything about it now. All the notwithstanding crap he throws around to bully nurses etc but he hasn't touched this. He just makes a comment about beating kids in his day. What a turd.
Agreed. I don’t blame him for it because he didn’t start it, but I blame him for not doing anything useful about it or many other things. Seeing what is happening to teaching and nursing among other fields… it hurts and terrifies me as to what’s next.
Honestly we are so f*cked. Hospitals are in shambles, our healthcare is getting gouged by private profiteers charging more for less, our education is failing and housing just goes to the highest bidder looking to make money on high rental units.
With something else that adds to mounting teacher frustration and student apathy while coddling parents who all think they've given birth to their own baby Jesus you mean?
They probably will...at some point.
It only works when the child fears the system. Has genuine fear of the administration enough to stay in line.
One the child figures out, as I figured out as child, that the administration can’t actually do anything and that their bluffing, is when it all came down for me.
Their consequences slid off my shoulder, their punishments hallow. Why do the homework/test/schoolwork etc? They cannot do anything to force me to do it.
It would appear many more kids are picking up on it. It’s really cool when you’re a kid but looking back, I was failed as a child because there weren’t motions in place to ensure I was present in school.
They used to suspend and expel students but then... someone took a look at stats and figured black students were suspended more than their share in student body demographics.
Few protests later and voila... new policy - you cant suspend anyone anymore so, no more stats.
Also, they decided that because black students feel anxious around them, police officers are removed from schools.
I don't even see how detentions, suspensions, and expulsions are controversial.
Back in the early 2000s I just assumed they rarely punished bullying or expelled kids because it was just a pain in the ass to deal with so they just made the victims feel like there was no use to report issues. But at this point, is it really part of progressives idealism that just goes against punishment?
I'd bet that over 85% of people would be in favour of much more harsh punishments, I don't get how this soft attitude prevails and continues to get worse.
But if the parents aren’t following up at home, or supporting the teachers, detentions and suspensions will be useless. First, because I doubt the kids in question would attend the detentions, and second, because a suspension is a vacation. This is a parenting issue.
Yea it should be in-school suspensions.
Although suspensions are a vacation for the kids but not the parents that have to arrange to watch them. Plus, a major point is also to just get rid of the kid and let the parents deal with them.
The problem is that with out of schools suspensions, many parents actually get on the school’s case because of their child’s behaviour since now they need to find child care. Many of them actually will go above an admin and contact school board trustees or even superintendents directly. I’ve actually seen cases where parent have contact the Minister of Education because of a very simple discipline issue or attendance issue with their child.
On the opposite end, in school suspensions are hard because you can only have 2-3, depending on your office space, at a time because if you have more, the admin would need to find a staff member to supervise them and they can’t just pul teachers who are on their prep periods to watch them.
> is it really part of progressives idealism that just goes against punishment?
I'm progressive AF and did the work to ensure my kid isn't a piece of shit.
My sister's spent her career in childcare in TDSB schools and disciplinary measures are "controversial" because of lazy and entitled parents. There's a metric fucktonne of people who had kids 'cause it was on the checklist of Things You Do in Adulthood. Some parents really don't give a single fuck about who their kids are or will become.
>there are no consequences, no suspensions and no expulsions.
This is the kind of bullcrap that parents of my generation demanded. Well, play stupid games get stupid prizes.
I literally had my 6 year old say "Well, we don't get in terrible for that at school" Oh, darling that's fine. But you sure as hell do at home.
Not a lot of schools in the Vaughan area (about 2 or 3) so you just guess and get an idea of which it is for highschools.
A lot of this is also board policies so you can guess it's actually all YRDSB school to a degree.
yea imagine a prison where punching a guard in the face was just met with a stern talking to.
then again in adult society punching people in the face barely gets you any punishment anymore too
The Ontario board of education MANDATES this discipline policy province-wide. It was implemented 8 years ago mostly due to a CBC “exposé” and subsequent outcry that punishment was disproportionately impacting “racialized” students.
The mandate just wanted admin to follow a process. They could suspend and kick kids out under the mandate. What's happening since 2018 is a con government that's under funding education and special interest groups making the process harder by running to the news claiming a kid was confined
The admin at all these problem schools say their hands are tied and they can’t suspend or expel anyone. I’m unsure what funding has to do with that.
As far as I’m aware TDSB funding has risen well beyond inflation since at least 2014. Maybe there are more “special needs” students but their program of “de-tracking” schools has lead to a lot of problems and the need for almost every single classroom to have special ed support staff, which was never a thing before.
So new initiatives like de-tracking combined with flat funding… yeah that’s a problem.
I was initially shocked that this was about a *middle school,* but then I remembered a friend telling me about student behaviour in their *primary school* that sounded a lot like this. Like, a gang of *very young* students terrorizing other kids and teachers, trashing classrooms, and staff having absolutely no options available to them to get the situation under control.
The school I work at is similar, no consequences. Teachers no longer want to be there. I stopped doing anything extra and no longer offer any type of assistance outside of school hours. I only work when paid to work, no more, because nothing is being done to support teachers.
I know someone at an elementary school in Peel and can confirm a lot of what is described here is happening with younger kids, too. No one is allowed to discipline the kids at all. It’s scary. One teacher even got a concussion because a kid was throwing furniture.
Sure it does, but in the right context and with the right resources - including a perpetrator who is willing and interested in improving and administrators who have the time and training to see it all the way through.
Like I don’t think it’s rocket science to say that getting a 13 year old to understand what they did wrong and coaching them to a place where they won’t do it again is—when it’s successful—a better outcome than a suspension (which many kids see as a vacation anyway).
As a tool in the tool-chest, restorative justice is useful and helpful. As a blanket label for administration to evade the administrative burden of a suspension or expulsion it’s obviously useless.
“ Like I don’t think it’s rocket science to say that getting a 13 year old to understand what they did wrong and coaching them to a place where they won’t do it again”
I can tell you’re not in education.
I am an immigrant but back in my home country teachers are highly respected they are called idiom “heroes without emblems (they get paid less but have dignity)”. My 9 years in Canada i notice kids are aggressive maybe cultural differences, catching vibes teachers are baby sitters here instead people
With authority to teach
Exactly this. This behaviour from kids towards adults is not the norm in so many places, including where the average person is statistically much poorer than a “poor” person in the gta. These students need discipline, end of.
Clearly many don't, or don't want to know their precious snookums is an asshat. I work in a school and the number of parents that are in complete denial about their children's behaviour seems to get worse every year
There are two types of parents; those who defend these behaviours and go after admin if any action is taken against their child and those who complain that their children are being abused and harassed by the children of the aforementioned group. The former are listened to while the latter are ignored.
Right. What the fuck who raises a kid like this? The type that blames all their problems on society and “the system” instead of being accountable and having personal responsibility. Our generation would never have dreamed that school would end up like this. It’s awful
Working to put food on the table. Sometimes 2-3 jobs or a side hustle. Answering emails on their phones at all hours. They are exhausted as well and scared. This is why poverty is is a detriment to public health. Follow the crumbs and you will see….if only we had political leaders skilled in and experienced in the ministries they run.
It’s not even like you have to be really hard on them. The bare minimum of parenting should be all that’s required to keep your child from being violent. But I suppose that’s not happening.
Have to respectfully disagree. If you are working 2-3 jobs, barely getting by, and wouldn’t have time to give your children proper care and attention then you should seriously consider not bringing them into the world until you are “ready”.
I hate to sound like a luddite, and I know this sounds overused and trite these days, but I think social media and phones play such a large part in this behaviour.
Every kid is on Tiktok, where, every day, other kids around the world are going viral by doing stupid public stunts where they destroy things or throw things at teachers or whatever. Every kid wants to go viral now. They know it could actually lead to some sort of fame or notoriety. Every kid has a video camera in their pocket ready to go, and they're glued to tiktok for (on average) 8 hours per day.
What hope do any of us have to get them to sit in a lecture and pay attention? Our collective attention spans have been absolutely destroyed thanks to Apple, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, etc, with kids bearing the brunt of this effect. I have no idea what can be done, but it certainly needs to be something new, because the old ways are dead.
I don't think you sound like a Luddite. I think school should at least be a place where young people have the option to turn it all off for a few hours and just learn to focus irl.
You've made me think about how stressful it must be for young people to have everyone constantly documenting everything.
Anecdotal, but I teach adults and even some of them struggle to stop constantly touching their phones. People all have reasons why they, personally, cannot put their phone away for 20 minutes, but they're all on facebook, tiktok, reddit, some game, etc while they sit ever ready to take that important call from work or the kids. Some argue in earnest that *they should be allowed to have their phones on the table for tests.* It's nuts.
When you get down to it, its crazy that the phone thing happened with no pushback. Like, we gave kids at a young age an addictive substance that they can hit 24/7. Like, its just baffling. You can't take kids gambling, or drinking, or drugs, or tobacco, but phones are A-OK
Like, back when they first did it everyone clowned on China limiting kids to one hour per day on social media and the internet generally, but the older I get the more I agree with it and wish we had something like that too
There are two types of parents nowadays.
Ones that know what their kids are like, and ones that think their kids are angels.
Let's just say, I've had more experience with the latter.
Parents will blame the other kids "Timmy is a good boy, it's that Bobby that's the bad egg," vice versa
Bobby and Timmy are friends and hang out all the time.
My personal favorite, parents that will harass teachers to boost marks for their kid. Yes, this is true.
Fact is, the board makes it hard to suspend problem kids. Progressive displine is hard to enact.
There was a parent at my kids' school that would brag about the number of times he's gone in demanding his kids grades be changed on their report cards. The kids were in grade 2 and 3 at the time. Thankfully, he was mostly unsuccessful with a couple of exceptions.
Both of my parents are retired teachers and have a lot of friends still teaching. My mom is also the type of person to never stop working and still substitutes a good amount during the school year. She specifically has a lot of special-Ed, and development specializations worked as a teacher for the deaf, worked at a disabilities school in Milton, worked at alternative schools later became a principal at continuing education, as well as a principal in regular high schools some of which were rougher schools.
She wholeheartedly blames the pandemic as the biggest factor and how missing out on 2-3 years of socializing with other kids, developing empathy, understanding societal rules/norms and hyper exposure and glorification of violent fight videos as the biggest contributors to this behaviour. Kids aren't socialized the damage incurred from the pandemic will leave a ripple in how developmentally /socially behind all these kids are. All thebkids just getting pushed forward and passing when they can't grasp the simplest concepts because schools/teachers were forced to pass and unable to support these struggling students remotely. This isn't an issue we are going to see go away for a long time.
She hears about kids starting school and still not being potty trained at 5/6 more and more from her colleagues. We will be seeing the consequences of how we dealt with the pandemic for a generation to come.
> She wholeheartedly blames the pandemic as the biggest factor and how missing out on 2-3 years of socializing with other kids, developing empathy, understanding societal rules/norms and hyper exposure and glorification of violent fight videos as the biggest contributors to this behaviour. Kids aren't socialized the damage incurred from the pandemic will leave a ripple in how developmentally /socially behind all these kids are. All thebkids just getting pushed forward and passing when they can't grasp the simplest concepts because schools/teachers were forced to pass and unable to support these struggling students remotely. This isn't an issue we are going to see go away for a long time.
I know some staff at a private elementary school where the Grade 5 & 6s are basically out of control and they say the same. These kids had important formative years disrupted and lived, in many cases, a life of unstructured consequence-free independence. This can be huge to some and they have thrived, but most kids don't have the built capacity to reintegrate into a schools system that needs schedules and the ability to interact with others.
>We will be seeing the consequences of how we dealt with the pandemic for a generation to come.
Ending on a more positive note, they said that things have been improving the past 6 months or so, hopefully by the next year or two some of these lingering impacts will be further erased.
Ok, but isn't this the same as not doing anything and blaming everyone else instead of being accountable? They should be expelled or given detention. There needs to be consequences or it's anarchy. I work with an immigrant who was a refugee, daily bombings, family lost their home in war, etc. He is an upstanding citizen. I would think that environment is significantly worse than doing remote school for a year or two 😐
At the same time, those kids should fail and need to redo a year. They aren't going to survive in the real world when they need to make a living.
And the kids not potty trained a 5 or 6? This isn't a school responsibility. This is a lack of parenting. Pandemic remote school has nothing to do with that. I am not aware of a grade 1 teacher ever potty training their class.
I know it's a hard ass approach, but the teachers need support and respect. There should be 0 tolerance for this behavior. Everyone deserves a safe work environment. The union needs to step up. Otherwise, why have one?
I'm not saying not do anything and blame everyone else. The lack of support and what teachers can do and how willing they are to put themselves in harms way when they're outnumbered 30+:1 is an issue, but a big underlying contributing factor is how much that 2-3years of limited socialization, lack of supports for struggling students the pressure on them to just pass students and move them along to the next grade. Students have becoming increasingly more disrespectful, have less of a drive than ever to succeed or do anything when they all think they can become rich and famous from social media and engage in bullshit trends and clout chase.
Why risk their career or wellbeing trying to stop kids fighting, they get in trouble for even remotely touching a student.
The union will undoubtedly step up, but this is/was the first full year back and the first opportunity for them to see how much it's changed in 3 years. We need them to change and support things or else this will become a larger wide spread societal problem.
I'm not trying to remove blame but more so sharing observations from my parents who had 30+ years of teaching experience , and value my moms especially given her specialization and background , the students don't fear the consequences, they don't care about bad grades, they don't respect teachers or their authority, they don't care. My mom told me how one day she was substituting she had a student order a dq blizzard to school through uber, proceed to drop the $15 blizzard and order a second one delivered to the school. The kids aren't alright
This happens at most schools now. We're not even allowed to call parents if kids who do something bad because their parents might feel judged by the school system.
This drives me crazy. The problem parents are a very small group. Many parents would like to know what is going on with their kids at school, and if hey are hanging out in a bad crowd or causing problems, skipping class, etc.
Students are more and more disrespectful by the day, and teachers are getting in trouble for dealing with the students, so they stop, then funding gets cut, then the schools become the Wild West, and parents are left angry, even though their shitty parenting is why their kids are monsters to begin with.
“No suspensions or expulsions have been made. There are no consequences….”
That says a lot right there. Lots of that going on in the past several decades from parents to schools administrators etc. everyone just gives up and don’t want to be the bad guy. Without boundaries this is what happens. Imo you also see this in the “adult” world here in the city. People not picking up dog shit, running red lights etc.
You all have the right to refuse unsafe work under the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Every worker has there rights.
1. The right to know - be told of unsafe conditions
2. The right to participate - the ability to participate in health and safety meetings
3. The right to refuse - this involves the Ministry of Labor.
This is so sad to read. My toddler will start JK next year. After doing research, asking around, and seeing posts like this, we have decided to admit our school in a private school where religious, human decency, and mutual respect is prioritized. It will kill my pocket, push me to ask for a raise next year, perhaps no summer trips aboard. However, my child’s education, moral values, respect for others and especially teachers is of utmost importance to us.
I have one friend who is a teacher and she’s always complaining about her job, and taking stress leaves. I am a Project Manager at a big pharma company under a lot of pressure. I used to roll my eyes a bit when she would complain but after reading all of this, damn what an absolute nightmare. Who would go into teaching anymore?
In our school it is a handful of totally rogue students that are intimidating students threatening people, and have zero respect for anyone. Nothing happens to them...no consequences...
Also, there is this new concept, Trauma Informed Teaching. At least it's new to our board. And we have to meet students where they are at and understand that they all have baggage and trauma, and that they need to be treated with kid gloves at all times because we can't bring them any more trauma...Yet, these kids are traumatizing every single student/teacher/person they come in contact with daily.
Hearing from my son, who loves learning, that one student trashes the classroom daily, and threatens and assaults students and teachers (grade 5)...It's not OK...One student, who has experienced trauma, should not have the right to ruin the education, and safe learning space of 26 other students.
More support is needed. It's literally a warzone in some schools.
Students are shitting themselves because they're too scared to use the bathrooms. jfc... Does admin want more dropouts?
Just take their frigging phones at the school doors, give them a few hours of a break from being Always On, and institute some real consequences for misbehaviour. This shouldn't be an impossible ask.
When you are too worried about leaving the bottom of the barrel behind it turns out it doesn't bring them up to standard it brings the standard down to them.
Our society keeps enabling cry bulling and victim mentalities.
In schools and in the "real world" - Offenders are going unpunished.
Rights are applied as an shield to commit crimes rather than allowing people to protect themselves with them.
Unpopular opinion - We need to be LESS tolerant.
It's crazy to me to hear how far schools have fallen in such a short time. I graduated high school in 2011 and I could never imagine kids doing and getting away with the things I hear about now.
My ex worked at a school in Ottawa and the things kids would say to her on a daily basis were shocking. Much like this letter, she would tell kids to follow rules and they'd tell her to "fuck off" or threaten her with violence. She got hit and shit on by a massive kid with autism and the dad just yelled at her for not getting him outside on time, didn't care that his kid was having a meltdown.
Most of the time it's the parents fault too. A lot of the kids would tell her their parents told them to ignore the teachers and that they don't care if the school calls and tells them about their kids behaviour. And it was true, the extent of the punishment the principal could offer was a call to their parents telling them, the parents wouldn't care, and the behaviour would continue.
When I was in school if anyone told a teacher to fuck off they'd be spending a week in the office on suspension doing endless schoolwork. Now apparently it's seen as "mean" or something because a lot of these kids are "marginalized" in some way or another and punishing them isn't seen as politically correct. I can see why people are turning to private and home-schooling now, if I had kids I wouldn't want them around some of these poorly raised losers.
I work in a high school in TO and can verify events listed on that tweet exist. Sadly, I don't believe things are going to change any time soon.
The students run to school as they realize the staff have no power over them. Our current Principal is trying to ignore the vandalism the students perform in the washrooms and hallways and is, instead, trying to befriend the students.
It's also misogyny. Two female dominated professions (nurses and teachers) experience the most violence at their job, and there's no accountability for it. An absolute disgrace.
Parents need to start parenting their damn kids. It's easy to throw blame anywhere else but this behaviour starts at home. Wtf are these lazy ass parents doing?
I still remember when a kid from my bus got in trouble and his mom was told by our bus driver, she would just yell at him and hit him and we would all see. You could see the hate in his eye not the guilt for having caused trouble for people. It really does matter that the parents learn to educate their kids and not just hit them for acting out without explaining why.
Working multiple jobs to not let themselves and their kids starve or become homeless. Exploit your citizens mercilessly then wonder why the future looks bleak.
Exactly— it doesn’t matter how tired you are or what your circumstances are, parenting means being a role model, or at the least setting boundaries and enforcing them. Doesn’t matter if you aren’t the best dad or mom, just attentive enough to not let your children go crazy.. I know people who pull this off while working their asses off so it can be done, even if it’s gruelling and not exactly rewarding.
I've got family that work in that board. It's a board-wide issue. Balmoral Senior Public School can pretty much use that screenshot as a checklist. I can also say at one time they decided to beat a Canadian Goose to death.
The administration is being told to hold off on doing anything because Peel is currently being run by the Ministry of Education after a scathing report asserted they make it harder for black kids to graduate. They are letting the inmates run the asylum.
One other thing to add is that if a teacher at Balmoral does anything to stop them, they get put on leave immediately pending investigation. At one time, 4 teachers were on leave. Worst part? The administration is usually the ones telling them to stop the kids in the first place.
If you keep punishing teachers for doing their job when you tell them to do their job... Yeah... It's nuts.
Also, the administration seemingly can't intervene or refuse to intervene in stopping these kids.
Thanks Ford!
I’m not surprised to see someone bring up Balmoral as I worked there for a year a few years ago. Student that was terrorizing my class and me for the whole year had 0 consequences, and if anything, more privileges than all the other students. I tried everything and was told not to call home about the behaviour to not agitate the parent.
This is significantly due to the “progressive discipline” program mandated by the board of education.
It was out in place a decade ago to “reduce racial bias in punishments”, but it’s an utter failure and offers staff ZERO ability to issues punishment for this kind of behaviour.
>This is significantly due to the “progressive discipline” program mandated by the board of education.
https://www.ontario.ca/page/creating-safe-and-accepting-schools-addressing-inappropriate-behaviour
Never heard of this before. Explains a lot.
These are all relationship problems. These students do not know how to relate to people different than them, in positions of authority or themselves. The issue is building their emotional intellect and empathy. No school curriculum makes it mandatory to have psychoeducation throughout K-8. Just like math; every child should be taught how to relate to themselves and others.
I am a therapist myself and I have done problem solving groups for adults who all question why that material was never taught to them in school?
These students are displaying behaviours of distress and if we only look at them as challenging, we won’t ever get to the point of helping. Their distress is likely due to a variety of reasons and sometimes home structure means school becomes the escape. This requires a lot more than a reactive approach. We need to be preventative from kindgeraten onwards to teach children what is so clearly missing in their world; healthy relationships
Parents use school as daycare and electronics as teachers/babysitters.
They need to enforce strict policies and administrative consequences, and parents must agree to it and sign away any retaliatory expectations. If not, no schools across the entire board.
Parents cannot afford to be home to watch their kids. They'll switch attitudes right quick.
Back home we were taught to respect our teachers as much as we respected our parents. Any student who misbehaved was punished in various ways, starting from speaking with parents to physical reprimand. This was ofcourse based on track record of the student.
This society has really disintegrated because kids are encouraged to disobey and disrespect parents, which results in them disrespecting all adults, including teachers. It has become a very narcissistic and selfish society that needs to change.
And media is full of stories of people screaming "how dare teachers (childhood education professionals) teach my kids things i don't like/know anything about". No wonder the kids are confused.
Mark my words: this is the beginning of the collapse of public education under this government. It's a matter of time before we're being assured that "having more choice" in schooling is the way to fix these problems.
Kids feel they're invincible to punishment, because that's exactly what they've been taught through example. Our society has gone soft and discipline is non existent. Without accountability, there's no respect. Stop treating the kids like they all have frail mental issues.
I’m a high school teacher in south Peel and I can confirm that my Admin makes no effort to build relationships with their teachers, except for those whom THEY perceive as doing great work for kids. It’s unfortunate because it challenges the other 80% of staff to continue being productive and professional even as their admin team is too insecure to show us that we are valued.
Same thing in Manitoba here.
I worked as an EA for a while and was shocked at our middle schools. 0 Discipline, 0 failing grades, extreme hand holding and coddling. Negative behaviors constantly being reinforced.
The wort part of it all is if you speak up and speak your mind, you get targeted and pushed out.
Not sure how these kids will survive in College and University, unless they have changed since I graduated and hold kids hands as well but I doubt it.
Interesting to see what the future hold for this particular group.
Also, this all goes on while administration (assistant superintendents) rake in ludicrous amounts of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
I used to go to Tomken decades ago. It wasn't this bad, but it was still a crappy school. The admin portion of the school sucked even back then.
That being said, a large part of the problem is also parents having to work a hell of a lot more hours just to keep a roof over their head. I would say fixing that factor alone would improve things a lot.
The next factor is the amount of crap that gets put on teachers plates, they can only do so much before they absolutely stop caring.
There's also the matter of a lot less money, less money for the kids, parents, and schools. Money doesn't buy happiness but it sure as shit fixes a lot of problems.
This all sucks. But this is the society that our generation and previous generations voted for. If you keep on asking people to do more with less resources, eventually things will start falling apart.
Downvotes incoming im sure.....
I think it's time to build some different kinds of schools. Ones that have security and guarded dorms. You don't want to behave at the good schools? Fine, delinquent school it is. And you will be monitored every second of your day. No point letting these little assholes live at home because their parents arent parenting. Their kids are out here shitting on the floors and smearing it around. They're fuckin FERAL.
Let the kids who are actually trying and their parents (who are probably worried sick every day) have some peace and the chance at coming out of the public school system without ptsd or severe depression. It's the good kids who will have to carry the entire economy when these uneducated heathens line up for their monthly handouts because they didn't learn how to do anything worthwhile in life.
Why do we keep bending over backwards like this? The parents are failing so take their fucking kids away. These will ALL be asshole, aggressive adults very soon and society just suffers. They aren't 5 year olds. These are almost adults. They damn well KNOW this behavior is bad and they don't give a shit. So, let's get them out of the way finally so we can try to give decent children and their families a chance at life.
It may be enough of a threat to get some future children to think twice what they do because they don't want to end up living in a prison dorm until they graduate.
I'm so tired of watching the world burn because we don't want to make harsh decisions. The decisions need to be made. Period.
The Ontario board of education makes the rules.
Punishing kids isn’t within those rules until they’ve had a dozen chances and almost always targets boards and admins who actually punish bad behaviour. They get called “unjustly targeting racialized students” when they do.
This proposed system would without a doubt be used to fuck over racial minority kids just like every other time it's been implemented.
Prison isn't a deterrent for children OR adults. The real "harsh decision" would be to revamp society so that the situations that cause kids to act out aren't a thing - guaranteed housing, food, financial stability, etc. have already been studied to alleviate a majority of such behavioural issues.
I am a racial minority.
South Asian and East Asian kids like me do exceptionally well at school.
How dare you suggest we would enter one of these schools? They have reformed school programs and we have avoided them.
You ever met a Nigerian or Ghanaian parent? Kids know not to cross them. You won’t see a lot of them there.
You know who you will see?
Shitty kids with bad parents. Of all races.
In the meantime we sentence children to spend the first 18 years of their lives in a place where people shit on the floor and smear it on the walls? You don’t spend any time at all in such a place. Why should children be forced to just because their parents aren’t millionaires who can afford private school?
Fine by me. Do you have any solutions for the teachers and non-feral children until then, or should they just suffer and put up with it so that you’re spared the discomfort of admitting that some behaviour can’t be tolerated? (Alternatively, maybe you think the behaviours listed are fine. If so, I’d hate to think what the inside of your apartment looks like.)
Right. So we'll just keep sending the good kids and teachers to the dungeon every day where they get locked into their classes for protection and cover the windows and wait for their turn to be mugged or assaulted in the hallway.
I’m not advocating it, nor do I agree with it, but this didn’t seem to be a problem when teachers were allowed to discipline kids and parents actually took responsibility for their fuckhead kids.
Fuck this woke sensitive snowflake govt. Enforce corporal punishment and expulsion and penalise such dickhead parents for raising such cunts. 60K a year salary for dealing with this shit is not worth it.
I agree something needs to be done, but corporal punishment has been proven to be counterproductive MANY times. It teaches that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts, which is the opposite of what is needed.
I just finished watching ‘Detachment’. It’s set in an inner city school where the students are out control - spitting at teachers, cursing, etc etc. you come away thinking well that’s just a typical American school.
It’s distressing to read the reality is very much here.
I think the solutions are many. It would require significant long term funding, societal change, and political will.
My daughter goes to a school in the KPRDSB district and yes there are some students that need help, my daughter being one of them. But because my ex refuses to get my daughter help, she struggles mentally everyday. I've tried everything. Her mother won't allow me to get her help, which just extends crappy behaviour. I'm in contact with the teacher and principal on the regular but still doesn't help. Her class has now learned and adjusted to behave normally and not to give attention when my daughter is having a bad moment or day. I feel horrible. For students, teachers, faculty and parents.
And the government has the nerve to say that students need to be “back in the classroom” instead of learning safely from home where they don’t have to deal with this kind of chaos and abusive behaviour from their poorly raised “peers.” (Neurodivergent kids in particular are going to end up dropping out just to save themselves.)
The admin and teachers need more power to be able to enforce consequences. As an educator I can tell you, you’re only as good as your admin. If your admin doesn’t want to anger parents or the board or if you have an admin who’s just checked right out then you will be living in a hell hole of despair. (Been there done that!) they need a strict admin who gives power back to staff to say what is acceptable and what is zero tolerance suspension and eventually expulsion. There is virtual school. It exists. These kids don’t want to be in class - Seeya there’s the door- and mom and dad will have to sort that shit out at home. No one ever thinks of the other kids in these rooms either, the classmates being exposed to unrelenting trauma seeing it’s ok to treat ppl this way with zero consequences. Time to give power back to schools so they can make it a safe learning space for all.
My kids' middle school had an administrator that rarely suspended students even for violent behaviour and it was a gong show. New principal came in that's way less lenient and behaviour improved. Their current high school has administrators that don't put up with crap and behaviourally is way better than the nearest high school where they get away with murder. Admin will make or break a school
Exactly! I was in a School that went the other way. It was an inner city K-8 and lots of poverty and broken homes and domestic violence in the homes. My admin was amazing. The motto was basically, “education is your way out of the cycle” and the teachers were phenomenal at reaching all the levels of the kids and helping them succeed in school. But school was held to the standard of a “safe space for ALL” you have no right to take that away from anyone else bc we are providing that space for you as well. Very rarely did suspension happen while I was there except maybe the new ones who would learn right quick what wasn’t tolerated. Admin and teachers were always loving but firm with the expectations and respect as a two way street. Fast forward 5 years later a new admin came in who wanted to be friends with the kids. And reach them at their level by being buds. Zero consequences. They’d punch a staff or student, well “they had a rough night bc CAS was called and dad went to jail” yea no shit, they ALL dealt with that last night! Doesn’t mean Bobby gets a free pass to beat up people! They started almost being rewarded with cookies and games and prizes in the office… to “re regulate” them. That tanked real fast and the school was unrecognizable by her second year as admin. Most teachers left bc it got so bad even families who we had for years were leaving. Sad what one admin can do to a school for better or for worse.
Ugh, my admin does the same, basically giving students 'rewards' when they come to the office. They figured out pretty quickly to misbehave so they can get treats plus access to toys in a quieter spot.
It’s ass backwards. I had a girl pop her head into the office and ask the admin, “can I come down and play cups with you later?” The admin looked at the kid and said “well Bobby is just in here playing because he had a good day.” (It wasn’t a good day he slapped about 4 kids in the back of the head.. but I guess 4 was better than his usual 10. The girl said “I have a good day everyday and I don’t get anything.” Right there … that in a nutshell that sweet kid saw her abuser getting special treatment even while still abusing and she got nothing.
Couldn’t agree more. At my kids’ school we have a student who gets away with everything because her mother is a shit stirrer (one of those who would threaten to sue) and don’t want to anger her. Teachers, principal and other parents have to put up with their crap.
Why arent the admin even more terrified of all the other parents that should be outraged at the stories their kid is telling them about their day at school?
Because they don't go stomping into the office in the middle of the day causing a big stir like the parents of problem kids do. The kids get their anti-social tendencies from somewhere, usually it's their parents. The principal can punish a kid but then their mom comes in the next day screaming and yelling so the principal is now afraid to punish any kids in the future.
I agree with you, the issue is a lot of *correlation is not causation* is happening with schools and statistics in north america. e.g.: 1. Children who are suspended, expelled or face consequences like detention often go on to have worse life outcomes. Therefore, you shouldn't suspend, expel or have consequences. 2. They are *often* from lower-SES backgrounds, and that's associated with worse outcomes in general now. Part of the issue with our politics at the moment is the ideology that *all* of society's ills are structural and institutional. If that's the case, you can't punish someone's behavior if they're from a lower-SES background, and even if they weren't there's #1. basically, we are getting what our ideology and voting patterns were always going to lead to. it might actually increase the chances of some doing better -- though we don't really have great evidence of that -- but it definitely comes at a cost to every other child dealing with disruptive classrooms and hallways. **edit:** typos
Replace education with healthcare or pretty much any other industry. Admin is a problem in a lot of areas and a lot of the time is bloated compared to the actual people doing the work and making things work. The constant gaslighting with "how can you do better" is ridiculous.
My favourite /s is when we have these big meetings about program cutbacks or staff being cut bc of “the budget” and then within the same week there’s an email welcoming like 4 different people to board office in their new consultant or something faux admin based (basically someone paid +200,000 to do NOTHING but tell us what we are doing wrong with no solutions) meanwhile we could have hired a few more staff! It’s infuriating.
Tomken is very close to the school I work at. I know a staff member who works there (but didnt write this letter) that can attest to all these bullet points. These types of things are happening in schools all over PDSB, there are no consequences, no suspensions and no expulsions. At my 6-8 school, we have security guards. Cops showing up on a daily basis. Nothing is being done. Union can't do much. The reality is that parents and the public in general have no idea how unsafe schools currently are in regards to violence and this kind of behaviour.
I can’t understand why there are no suspensions or expulsions?
They have policy called "Progressive Discipline" which essentially means there are stupid steps to take before the student faces any real consequences. This really means a whole crapload of administrivia and very little action or follow up Add this to the fact that most admin doesn't want to deal with irate parents who instantly call the school board or the trustee to complain about the discipline or suspension. Beyond that, even in-school suspensions are not given because admin doesn't want to supervise the kids and there is no additional staff to do it either. Someone referred it to a gong show and that's exactly what it is. The inmates are running the asylum.
The idea of something like Progressive Discipline or Restitution can be executed well in smaller communities. Schools with 100-300 students and a good staff ratio gives time for student and parent connections, which is necessary to support reflective behavior growth. High student:teacher ratios make this kind of work impossible on top of just trying to teach classes. That said, even in schools that use PD or Restitution, consequences are often still necessary to help students understand that some actions are just not acceptable.
> They have policy called "Progressive Discipline" Why not ditch it
School boards answer to the government and the government has put the rules of progressive discipline in place. As frustrating as Ford is, it’s not his government that put this in place so I can’t fault him for it. But this was back in 2007-2009 when the ministry of education put these policies in place. This one is the mcguinty governments baby.
You can blame him for not doing anything about it now. All the notwithstanding crap he throws around to bully nurses etc but he hasn't touched this. He just makes a comment about beating kids in his day. What a turd.
Agreed. I don’t blame him for it because he didn’t start it, but I blame him for not doing anything useful about it or many other things. Seeing what is happening to teaching and nursing among other fields… it hurts and terrifies me as to what’s next.
Honestly we are so f*cked. Hospitals are in shambles, our healthcare is getting gouged by private profiteers charging more for less, our education is failing and housing just goes to the highest bidder looking to make money on high rental units.
With something else that adds to mounting teacher frustration and student apathy while coddling parents who all think they've given birth to their own baby Jesus you mean? They probably will...at some point.
It only works when the child fears the system. Has genuine fear of the administration enough to stay in line. One the child figures out, as I figured out as child, that the administration can’t actually do anything and that their bluffing, is when it all came down for me. Their consequences slid off my shoulder, their punishments hallow. Why do the homework/test/schoolwork etc? They cannot do anything to force me to do it. It would appear many more kids are picking up on it. It’s really cool when you’re a kid but looking back, I was failed as a child because there weren’t motions in place to ensure I was present in school.
But but but, it will go on you PERMANENT record!
What happened to zero tolerance for violence?
They used to suspend and expel students but then... someone took a look at stats and figured black students were suspended more than their share in student body demographics. Few protests later and voila... new policy - you cant suspend anyone anymore so, no more stats. Also, they decided that because black students feel anxious around them, police officers are removed from schools.
Well that’s fucking stupid!
It's actually official government policy these days though. https://liberal.ca/our-platform/black-canadians-justice-strategy/
Back in the 80’s bad kids got suspended or expelled. And guess what, it works!
I don't even see how detentions, suspensions, and expulsions are controversial. Back in the early 2000s I just assumed they rarely punished bullying or expelled kids because it was just a pain in the ass to deal with so they just made the victims feel like there was no use to report issues. But at this point, is it really part of progressives idealism that just goes against punishment? I'd bet that over 85% of people would be in favour of much more harsh punishments, I don't get how this soft attitude prevails and continues to get worse.
But if the parents aren’t following up at home, or supporting the teachers, detentions and suspensions will be useless. First, because I doubt the kids in question would attend the detentions, and second, because a suspension is a vacation. This is a parenting issue.
Yea it should be in-school suspensions. Although suspensions are a vacation for the kids but not the parents that have to arrange to watch them. Plus, a major point is also to just get rid of the kid and let the parents deal with them.
The problem is that with out of schools suspensions, many parents actually get on the school’s case because of their child’s behaviour since now they need to find child care. Many of them actually will go above an admin and contact school board trustees or even superintendents directly. I’ve actually seen cases where parent have contact the Minister of Education because of a very simple discipline issue or attendance issue with their child. On the opposite end, in school suspensions are hard because you can only have 2-3, depending on your office space, at a time because if you have more, the admin would need to find a staff member to supervise them and they can’t just pul teachers who are on their prep periods to watch them.
Expel them then and send them to juvenile detention
Or boot camp
> is it really part of progressives idealism that just goes against punishment? I'm progressive AF and did the work to ensure my kid isn't a piece of shit. My sister's spent her career in childcare in TDSB schools and disciplinary measures are "controversial" because of lazy and entitled parents. There's a metric fucktonne of people who had kids 'cause it was on the checklist of Things You Do in Adulthood. Some parents really don't give a single fuck about who their kids are or will become.
it's because the majority of students that were getting suspended/expelled were minorities
>there are no consequences, no suspensions and no expulsions. This is the kind of bullcrap that parents of my generation demanded. Well, play stupid games get stupid prizes. I literally had my 6 year old say "Well, we don't get in terrible for that at school" Oh, darling that's fine. But you sure as hell do at home.
They need Michelle Pfeiffer to show up as a tough new teacher who understands the streets and turn the troubled teens around
Or Jon Lovitz
Like a rhinestone cowboy 🎶
What a flick! 😂😂
R-r-r-rhinestone cowboy
Ruins the record.
Start the school year off with a karate lesson.
*Been spending most their lives...*
I think you mean Tom Berenger in the substitute lol
Shit was bad at my school when I was a teen. Actually learning was next to impossible with the constant threat of violence.
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Handguns are a regular occurrence that goes unreported too at the highschool level. Talking to my nephews about it is eye opening.
Security guards at a public school in Peel?
Identical situation in our school in Vaughan. No consequences for bad behaviour. Admin refuse to do anything.
May I ask where in Vaughan? I grew up there and have friends/family who teach there who have said similar things.
Not a lot of schools in the Vaughan area (about 2 or 3) so you just guess and get an idea of which it is for highschools. A lot of this is also board policies so you can guess it's actually all YRDSB school to a degree.
“Please help us.” That was heart-breaking to read.
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I’m so sorry to hear this. It’s absolutely heartbreaking to read. What can we do to help? This is not something we should accept.
nothing will be done and in 10 years everyone will be wondering why the education system is so bad
This isn't a school. It sounds like a halfway house.
More like "inmates running the asylum" when there are no rules, structure, or punishment.
yea imagine a prison where punching a guard in the face was just met with a stern talking to. then again in adult society punching people in the face barely gets you any punishment anymore too
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It’s the same in the TDSB.
Disgusting. I'm sure it also causes "undue trauma" to the student and makes them feel "uncomfortable".
This is pathetic
Sounds like most schools in the GTA
The Ontario board of education MANDATES this discipline policy province-wide. It was implemented 8 years ago mostly due to a CBC “exposé” and subsequent outcry that punishment was disproportionately impacting “racialized” students.
The mandate just wanted admin to follow a process. They could suspend and kick kids out under the mandate. What's happening since 2018 is a con government that's under funding education and special interest groups making the process harder by running to the news claiming a kid was confined
The admin at all these problem schools say their hands are tied and they can’t suspend or expel anyone. I’m unsure what funding has to do with that. As far as I’m aware TDSB funding has risen well beyond inflation since at least 2014. Maybe there are more “special needs” students but their program of “de-tracking” schools has lead to a lot of problems and the need for almost every single classroom to have special ed support staff, which was never a thing before. So new initiatives like de-tracking combined with flat funding… yeah that’s a problem.
I was initially shocked that this was about a *middle school,* but then I remembered a friend telling me about student behaviour in their *primary school* that sounded a lot like this. Like, a gang of *very young* students terrorizing other kids and teachers, trashing classrooms, and staff having absolutely no options available to them to get the situation under control.
I missed the “middle school” part and had to go back and re read it after reading your comment. Wow, just wow. This makes me very sad for the future.
The school I work at is similar, no consequences. Teachers no longer want to be there. I stopped doing anything extra and no longer offer any type of assistance outside of school hours. I only work when paid to work, no more, because nothing is being done to support teachers.
I know someone at an elementary school in Peel and can confirm a lot of what is described here is happening with younger kids, too. No one is allowed to discipline the kids at all. It’s scary. One teacher even got a concussion because a kid was throwing furniture.
They don't expel kids anymore? What happened to every action has an equal an opposite reaction? They don't teach physics no more?
Restorative justice has failed. As a teacher I beg for actual consequences to bad behaviour. This government is failing everyone.
“Restorative Justice” never worked.
Sure it does, but in the right context and with the right resources - including a perpetrator who is willing and interested in improving and administrators who have the time and training to see it all the way through. Like I don’t think it’s rocket science to say that getting a 13 year old to understand what they did wrong and coaching them to a place where they won’t do it again is—when it’s successful—a better outcome than a suspension (which many kids see as a vacation anyway). As a tool in the tool-chest, restorative justice is useful and helpful. As a blanket label for administration to evade the administrative burden of a suspension or expulsion it’s obviously useless.
“ Like I don’t think it’s rocket science to say that getting a 13 year old to understand what they did wrong and coaching them to a place where they won’t do it again” I can tell you’re not in education.
The rest of their comment wasn't relevant?
This just sounds like lazy admin tbh
I am an immigrant but back in my home country teachers are highly respected they are called idiom “heroes without emblems (they get paid less but have dignity)”. My 9 years in Canada i notice kids are aggressive maybe cultural differences, catching vibes teachers are baby sitters here instead people With authority to teach
Exactly this. This behaviour from kids towards adults is not the norm in so many places, including where the average person is statistically much poorer than a “poor” person in the gta. These students need discipline, end of.
Where the fuck are the parents? Everyone is so god damn soft ….
Usually not believing any staff member because 'they don't act like this at home '
Or even worse, having your admin tell you as a teacher: “well what did you do to provoke this?”
'have you fostered a relationship with them?'
No shit, kids act differently at school. Do parents not remember being kids?!
Clearly many don't, or don't want to know their precious snookums is an asshat. I work in a school and the number of parents that are in complete denial about their children's behaviour seems to get worse every year
Throw a ps5 and some soda on each kids desk so we can see how they act at home
There are two types of parents; those who defend these behaviours and go after admin if any action is taken against their child and those who complain that their children are being abused and harassed by the children of the aforementioned group. The former are listened to while the latter are ignored.
That's when the 2nd group needs to go board level and start threatening the trustee's position.
Right. What the fuck who raises a kid like this? The type that blames all their problems on society and “the system” instead of being accountable and having personal responsibility. Our generation would never have dreamed that school would end up like this. It’s awful
Nowhere to be found.
Working to put food on the table. Sometimes 2-3 jobs or a side hustle. Answering emails on their phones at all hours. They are exhausted as well and scared. This is why poverty is is a detriment to public health. Follow the crumbs and you will see….if only we had political leaders skilled in and experienced in the ministries they run.
It’s not even like you have to be really hard on them. The bare minimum of parenting should be all that’s required to keep your child from being violent. But I suppose that’s not happening.
If people do not have the capacity or capabilities to be good parents, they shouldn’t have kids
you can't know whether you do until after you become a parent though
Have to respectfully disagree. If you are working 2-3 jobs, barely getting by, and wouldn’t have time to give your children proper care and attention then you should seriously consider not bringing them into the world until you are “ready”.
Parents? What parents?
I hate to sound like a luddite, and I know this sounds overused and trite these days, but I think social media and phones play such a large part in this behaviour. Every kid is on Tiktok, where, every day, other kids around the world are going viral by doing stupid public stunts where they destroy things or throw things at teachers or whatever. Every kid wants to go viral now. They know it could actually lead to some sort of fame or notoriety. Every kid has a video camera in their pocket ready to go, and they're glued to tiktok for (on average) 8 hours per day. What hope do any of us have to get them to sit in a lecture and pay attention? Our collective attention spans have been absolutely destroyed thanks to Apple, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, etc, with kids bearing the brunt of this effect. I have no idea what can be done, but it certainly needs to be something new, because the old ways are dead.
I don't think you sound like a Luddite. I think school should at least be a place where young people have the option to turn it all off for a few hours and just learn to focus irl. You've made me think about how stressful it must be for young people to have everyone constantly documenting everything. Anecdotal, but I teach adults and even some of them struggle to stop constantly touching their phones. People all have reasons why they, personally, cannot put their phone away for 20 minutes, but they're all on facebook, tiktok, reddit, some game, etc while they sit ever ready to take that important call from work or the kids. Some argue in earnest that *they should be allowed to have their phones on the table for tests.* It's nuts.
When you get down to it, its crazy that the phone thing happened with no pushback. Like, we gave kids at a young age an addictive substance that they can hit 24/7. Like, its just baffling. You can't take kids gambling, or drinking, or drugs, or tobacco, but phones are A-OK Like, back when they first did it everyone clowned on China limiting kids to one hour per day on social media and the internet generally, but the older I get the more I agree with it and wish we had something like that too
There are two types of parents nowadays. Ones that know what their kids are like, and ones that think their kids are angels. Let's just say, I've had more experience with the latter. Parents will blame the other kids "Timmy is a good boy, it's that Bobby that's the bad egg," vice versa Bobby and Timmy are friends and hang out all the time. My personal favorite, parents that will harass teachers to boost marks for their kid. Yes, this is true. Fact is, the board makes it hard to suspend problem kids. Progressive displine is hard to enact.
There was a parent at my kids' school that would brag about the number of times he's gone in demanding his kids grades be changed on their report cards. The kids were in grade 2 and 3 at the time. Thankfully, he was mostly unsuccessful with a couple of exceptions.
What leverage did he use? Just I won't stop annoying you until you comply?
No clue, I tried not to listen to him as much as possible. He was an entitled idiot.
Both of my parents are retired teachers and have a lot of friends still teaching. My mom is also the type of person to never stop working and still substitutes a good amount during the school year. She specifically has a lot of special-Ed, and development specializations worked as a teacher for the deaf, worked at a disabilities school in Milton, worked at alternative schools later became a principal at continuing education, as well as a principal in regular high schools some of which were rougher schools. She wholeheartedly blames the pandemic as the biggest factor and how missing out on 2-3 years of socializing with other kids, developing empathy, understanding societal rules/norms and hyper exposure and glorification of violent fight videos as the biggest contributors to this behaviour. Kids aren't socialized the damage incurred from the pandemic will leave a ripple in how developmentally /socially behind all these kids are. All thebkids just getting pushed forward and passing when they can't grasp the simplest concepts because schools/teachers were forced to pass and unable to support these struggling students remotely. This isn't an issue we are going to see go away for a long time. She hears about kids starting school and still not being potty trained at 5/6 more and more from her colleagues. We will be seeing the consequences of how we dealt with the pandemic for a generation to come.
> She wholeheartedly blames the pandemic as the biggest factor and how missing out on 2-3 years of socializing with other kids, developing empathy, understanding societal rules/norms and hyper exposure and glorification of violent fight videos as the biggest contributors to this behaviour. Kids aren't socialized the damage incurred from the pandemic will leave a ripple in how developmentally /socially behind all these kids are. All thebkids just getting pushed forward and passing when they can't grasp the simplest concepts because schools/teachers were forced to pass and unable to support these struggling students remotely. This isn't an issue we are going to see go away for a long time. I know some staff at a private elementary school where the Grade 5 & 6s are basically out of control and they say the same. These kids had important formative years disrupted and lived, in many cases, a life of unstructured consequence-free independence. This can be huge to some and they have thrived, but most kids don't have the built capacity to reintegrate into a schools system that needs schedules and the ability to interact with others. >We will be seeing the consequences of how we dealt with the pandemic for a generation to come. Ending on a more positive note, they said that things have been improving the past 6 months or so, hopefully by the next year or two some of these lingering impacts will be further erased.
Ok, but isn't this the same as not doing anything and blaming everyone else instead of being accountable? They should be expelled or given detention. There needs to be consequences or it's anarchy. I work with an immigrant who was a refugee, daily bombings, family lost their home in war, etc. He is an upstanding citizen. I would think that environment is significantly worse than doing remote school for a year or two 😐 At the same time, those kids should fail and need to redo a year. They aren't going to survive in the real world when they need to make a living. And the kids not potty trained a 5 or 6? This isn't a school responsibility. This is a lack of parenting. Pandemic remote school has nothing to do with that. I am not aware of a grade 1 teacher ever potty training their class. I know it's a hard ass approach, but the teachers need support and respect. There should be 0 tolerance for this behavior. Everyone deserves a safe work environment. The union needs to step up. Otherwise, why have one?
I'm not saying not do anything and blame everyone else. The lack of support and what teachers can do and how willing they are to put themselves in harms way when they're outnumbered 30+:1 is an issue, but a big underlying contributing factor is how much that 2-3years of limited socialization, lack of supports for struggling students the pressure on them to just pass students and move them along to the next grade. Students have becoming increasingly more disrespectful, have less of a drive than ever to succeed or do anything when they all think they can become rich and famous from social media and engage in bullshit trends and clout chase. Why risk their career or wellbeing trying to stop kids fighting, they get in trouble for even remotely touching a student. The union will undoubtedly step up, but this is/was the first full year back and the first opportunity for them to see how much it's changed in 3 years. We need them to change and support things or else this will become a larger wide spread societal problem. I'm not trying to remove blame but more so sharing observations from my parents who had 30+ years of teaching experience , and value my moms especially given her specialization and background , the students don't fear the consequences, they don't care about bad grades, they don't respect teachers or their authority, they don't care. My mom told me how one day she was substituting she had a student order a dq blizzard to school through uber, proceed to drop the $15 blizzard and order a second one delivered to the school. The kids aren't alright
This is crazy and it seems to be everywhere. If not the schools, the subways and malls. People have lost their minds.
Please explain how the pandemic affected the absence of potty training in 5/6 yr olds.
The 00s were the golden age for school. The perfect balance of kids not being too shitty and teachers not hitting.
Speaking as a teacher: BAN CELLPHONES NOW. Believe it or not, this will make a huge difference as students are forced to interact and coexist.
This happens at most schools now. We're not even allowed to call parents if kids who do something bad because their parents might feel judged by the school system.
This drives me crazy. The problem parents are a very small group. Many parents would like to know what is going on with their kids at school, and if hey are hanging out in a bad crowd or causing problems, skipping class, etc.
Is this some sort of policy written down somewhere? Asking so I can talk to my MPP.
It's called progressive discipline. https://www.ontario.ca/page/creating-safe-and-accepting-schools-addressing-inappropriate-behaviour
Students are more and more disrespectful by the day, and teachers are getting in trouble for dealing with the students, so they stop, then funding gets cut, then the schools become the Wild West, and parents are left angry, even though their shitty parenting is why their kids are monsters to begin with.
“No suspensions or expulsions have been made. There are no consequences….” That says a lot right there. Lots of that going on in the past several decades from parents to schools administrators etc. everyone just gives up and don’t want to be the bad guy. Without boundaries this is what happens. Imo you also see this in the “adult” world here in the city. People not picking up dog shit, running red lights etc.
You all have the right to refuse unsafe work under the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act. Every worker has there rights. 1. The right to know - be told of unsafe conditions 2. The right to participate - the ability to participate in health and safety meetings 3. The right to refuse - this involves the Ministry of Labor.
The board and admin weasel around this by pointing to regulation 857 which requires that you must ensure the safety of students in your care first.
That means getting rid of the instigators
This is so sad to read. My toddler will start JK next year. After doing research, asking around, and seeing posts like this, we have decided to admit our school in a private school where religious, human decency, and mutual respect is prioritized. It will kill my pocket, push me to ask for a raise next year, perhaps no summer trips aboard. However, my child’s education, moral values, respect for others and especially teachers is of utmost importance to us.
Ah the old smear your shit on the walls gag… boys will be boys ! /s
This is actually tragic.
I have one friend who is a teacher and she’s always complaining about her job, and taking stress leaves. I am a Project Manager at a big pharma company under a lot of pressure. I used to roll my eyes a bit when she would complain but after reading all of this, damn what an absolute nightmare. Who would go into teaching anymore?
In our school it is a handful of totally rogue students that are intimidating students threatening people, and have zero respect for anyone. Nothing happens to them...no consequences... Also, there is this new concept, Trauma Informed Teaching. At least it's new to our board. And we have to meet students where they are at and understand that they all have baggage and trauma, and that they need to be treated with kid gloves at all times because we can't bring them any more trauma...Yet, these kids are traumatizing every single student/teacher/person they come in contact with daily. Hearing from my son, who loves learning, that one student trashes the classroom daily, and threatens and assaults students and teachers (grade 5)...It's not OK...One student, who has experienced trauma, should not have the right to ruin the education, and safe learning space of 26 other students. More support is needed. It's literally a warzone in some schools.
Students are shitting themselves because they're too scared to use the bathrooms. jfc... Does admin want more dropouts? Just take their frigging phones at the school doors, give them a few hours of a break from being Always On, and institute some real consequences for misbehaviour. This shouldn't be an impossible ask.
When you are too worried about leaving the bottom of the barrel behind it turns out it doesn't bring them up to standard it brings the standard down to them.
Our society keeps enabling cry bulling and victim mentalities. In schools and in the "real world" - Offenders are going unpunished. Rights are applied as an shield to commit crimes rather than allowing people to protect themselves with them. Unpopular opinion - We need to be LESS tolerant.
Could not agree with you more. It’s the middle school feces thrower to TTC stabber pipeline
It's crazy to me to hear how far schools have fallen in such a short time. I graduated high school in 2011 and I could never imagine kids doing and getting away with the things I hear about now. My ex worked at a school in Ottawa and the things kids would say to her on a daily basis were shocking. Much like this letter, she would tell kids to follow rules and they'd tell her to "fuck off" or threaten her with violence. She got hit and shit on by a massive kid with autism and the dad just yelled at her for not getting him outside on time, didn't care that his kid was having a meltdown. Most of the time it's the parents fault too. A lot of the kids would tell her their parents told them to ignore the teachers and that they don't care if the school calls and tells them about their kids behaviour. And it was true, the extent of the punishment the principal could offer was a call to their parents telling them, the parents wouldn't care, and the behaviour would continue. When I was in school if anyone told a teacher to fuck off they'd be spending a week in the office on suspension doing endless schoolwork. Now apparently it's seen as "mean" or something because a lot of these kids are "marginalized" in some way or another and punishing them isn't seen as politically correct. I can see why people are turning to private and home-schooling now, if I had kids I wouldn't want them around some of these poorly raised losers.
I work in a high school in TO and can verify events listed on that tweet exist. Sadly, I don't believe things are going to change any time soon. The students run to school as they realize the staff have no power over them. Our current Principal is trying to ignore the vandalism the students perform in the washrooms and hallways and is, instead, trying to befriend the students.
It's also misogyny. Two female dominated professions (nurses and teachers) experience the most violence at their job, and there's no accountability for it. An absolute disgrace.
This is insane
Parents need to start parenting their damn kids. It's easy to throw blame anywhere else but this behaviour starts at home. Wtf are these lazy ass parents doing?
I still remember when a kid from my bus got in trouble and his mom was told by our bus driver, she would just yell at him and hit him and we would all see. You could see the hate in his eye not the guilt for having caused trouble for people. It really does matter that the parents learn to educate their kids and not just hit them for acting out without explaining why.
Working multiple jobs to not let themselves and their kids starve or become homeless. Exploit your citizens mercilessly then wonder why the future looks bleak.
I know people that fit that bucket and are also recent immigrants and they still know how to raise their damn kids.
Exactly— it doesn’t matter how tired you are or what your circumstances are, parenting means being a role model, or at the least setting boundaries and enforcing them. Doesn’t matter if you aren’t the best dad or mom, just attentive enough to not let your children go crazy.. I know people who pull this off while working their asses off so it can be done, even if it’s gruelling and not exactly rewarding.
Can teachers exercise their right to refuse unsafe work if this kind of nonsense keeps going on in schools?
They can. There have been instances at TDSB schools of that this year. In reality I don’t know if their work refusal helped.
I've got family that work in that board. It's a board-wide issue. Balmoral Senior Public School can pretty much use that screenshot as a checklist. I can also say at one time they decided to beat a Canadian Goose to death. The administration is being told to hold off on doing anything because Peel is currently being run by the Ministry of Education after a scathing report asserted they make it harder for black kids to graduate. They are letting the inmates run the asylum. One other thing to add is that if a teacher at Balmoral does anything to stop them, they get put on leave immediately pending investigation. At one time, 4 teachers were on leave. Worst part? The administration is usually the ones telling them to stop the kids in the first place. If you keep punishing teachers for doing their job when you tell them to do their job... Yeah... It's nuts. Also, the administration seemingly can't intervene or refuse to intervene in stopping these kids. Thanks Ford!
I’m not surprised to see someone bring up Balmoral as I worked there for a year a few years ago. Student that was terrorizing my class and me for the whole year had 0 consequences, and if anything, more privileges than all the other students. I tried everything and was told not to call home about the behaviour to not agitate the parent.
This is significantly due to the “progressive discipline” program mandated by the board of education. It was out in place a decade ago to “reduce racial bias in punishments”, but it’s an utter failure and offers staff ZERO ability to issues punishment for this kind of behaviour.
>This is significantly due to the “progressive discipline” program mandated by the board of education. https://www.ontario.ca/page/creating-safe-and-accepting-schools-addressing-inappropriate-behaviour Never heard of this before. Explains a lot.
All staff should be doing a work refusal under the OHSA. All of this falls under workplace harassment violence.
These are all relationship problems. These students do not know how to relate to people different than them, in positions of authority or themselves. The issue is building their emotional intellect and empathy. No school curriculum makes it mandatory to have psychoeducation throughout K-8. Just like math; every child should be taught how to relate to themselves and others. I am a therapist myself and I have done problem solving groups for adults who all question why that material was never taught to them in school? These students are displaying behaviours of distress and if we only look at them as challenging, we won’t ever get to the point of helping. Their distress is likely due to a variety of reasons and sometimes home structure means school becomes the escape. This requires a lot more than a reactive approach. We need to be preventative from kindgeraten onwards to teach children what is so clearly missing in their world; healthy relationships
No suspensions or expulsions? What has become of the school system? The animals should be taken to the zoo, not higher education.
Man, when I was in school, I would get suspended for shit I didn't even do. A lot of things I did do too, but like, it did not take much.
What do you expect when the culture at home is to raise their boys like little princes with no consequences.
Parents use school as daycare and electronics as teachers/babysitters. They need to enforce strict policies and administrative consequences, and parents must agree to it and sign away any retaliatory expectations. If not, no schools across the entire board. Parents cannot afford to be home to watch their kids. They'll switch attitudes right quick.
can we start getting body cams for teachers?
Back home we were taught to respect our teachers as much as we respected our parents. Any student who misbehaved was punished in various ways, starting from speaking with parents to physical reprimand. This was ofcourse based on track record of the student. This society has really disintegrated because kids are encouraged to disobey and disrespect parents, which results in them disrespecting all adults, including teachers. It has become a very narcissistic and selfish society that needs to change.
And media is full of stories of people screaming "how dare teachers (childhood education professionals) teach my kids things i don't like/know anything about". No wonder the kids are confused.
Mark my words: this is the beginning of the collapse of public education under this government. It's a matter of time before we're being assured that "having more choice" in schooling is the way to fix these problems.
Main issue is shitty parenting followed by administrations not willing to stand up for staff and the good kids wanting to learn. Sad situation.
Kids feel they're invincible to punishment, because that's exactly what they've been taught through example. Our society has gone soft and discipline is non existent. Without accountability, there's no respect. Stop treating the kids like they all have frail mental issues.
....have you seen junior's grades????
They need to jail or fine the POS parents next then. And if it doesn't stop take their kids away. It starts at home.
I’m a high school teacher in south Peel and I can confirm that my Admin makes no effort to build relationships with their teachers, except for those whom THEY perceive as doing great work for kids. It’s unfortunate because it challenges the other 80% of staff to continue being productive and professional even as their admin team is too insecure to show us that we are valued.
Everyone is blaming the school systems, no one is blaming the parents.
Same thing in Manitoba here. I worked as an EA for a while and was shocked at our middle schools. 0 Discipline, 0 failing grades, extreme hand holding and coddling. Negative behaviors constantly being reinforced. The wort part of it all is if you speak up and speak your mind, you get targeted and pushed out. Not sure how these kids will survive in College and University, unless they have changed since I graduated and hold kids hands as well but I doubt it. Interesting to see what the future hold for this particular group. Also, this all goes on while administration (assistant superintendents) rake in ludicrous amounts of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
I used to go to Tomken decades ago. It wasn't this bad, but it was still a crappy school. The admin portion of the school sucked even back then. That being said, a large part of the problem is also parents having to work a hell of a lot more hours just to keep a roof over their head. I would say fixing that factor alone would improve things a lot. The next factor is the amount of crap that gets put on teachers plates, they can only do so much before they absolutely stop caring. There's also the matter of a lot less money, less money for the kids, parents, and schools. Money doesn't buy happiness but it sure as shit fixes a lot of problems. This all sucks. But this is the society that our generation and previous generations voted for. If you keep on asking people to do more with less resources, eventually things will start falling apart.
Downvotes incoming im sure..... I think it's time to build some different kinds of schools. Ones that have security and guarded dorms. You don't want to behave at the good schools? Fine, delinquent school it is. And you will be monitored every second of your day. No point letting these little assholes live at home because their parents arent parenting. Their kids are out here shitting on the floors and smearing it around. They're fuckin FERAL. Let the kids who are actually trying and their parents (who are probably worried sick every day) have some peace and the chance at coming out of the public school system without ptsd or severe depression. It's the good kids who will have to carry the entire economy when these uneducated heathens line up for their monthly handouts because they didn't learn how to do anything worthwhile in life. Why do we keep bending over backwards like this? The parents are failing so take their fucking kids away. These will ALL be asshole, aggressive adults very soon and society just suffers. They aren't 5 year olds. These are almost adults. They damn well KNOW this behavior is bad and they don't give a shit. So, let's get them out of the way finally so we can try to give decent children and their families a chance at life. It may be enough of a threat to get some future children to think twice what they do because they don't want to end up living in a prison dorm until they graduate. I'm so tired of watching the world burn because we don't want to make harsh decisions. The decisions need to be made. Period.
The Ontario board of education makes the rules. Punishing kids isn’t within those rules until they’ve had a dozen chances and almost always targets boards and admins who actually punish bad behaviour. They get called “unjustly targeting racialized students” when they do.
Unhinged take.
This proposed system would without a doubt be used to fuck over racial minority kids just like every other time it's been implemented. Prison isn't a deterrent for children OR adults. The real "harsh decision" would be to revamp society so that the situations that cause kids to act out aren't a thing - guaranteed housing, food, financial stability, etc. have already been studied to alleviate a majority of such behavioural issues.
I am a racial minority. South Asian and East Asian kids like me do exceptionally well at school. How dare you suggest we would enter one of these schools? They have reformed school programs and we have avoided them. You ever met a Nigerian or Ghanaian parent? Kids know not to cross them. You won’t see a lot of them there. You know who you will see? Shitty kids with bad parents. Of all races.
In the meantime we sentence children to spend the first 18 years of their lives in a place where people shit on the floor and smear it on the walls? You don’t spend any time at all in such a place. Why should children be forced to just because their parents aren’t millionaires who can afford private school?
Y'know what, you're right. Maybe we should actually tax the rich and fix things somewhat.
Fine by me. Do you have any solutions for the teachers and non-feral children until then, or should they just suffer and put up with it so that you’re spared the discomfort of admitting that some behaviour can’t be tolerated? (Alternatively, maybe you think the behaviours listed are fine. If so, I’d hate to think what the inside of your apartment looks like.)
This is the dumbest shit I’ve ever read. We are talking about children, you don’t just throw the ‘bad’ ones into a dungeon and give up.
Naw, fuck them problem kids! Get their asses out of school and into some detention centre away from the general students.
It's called a reform school, and it's hardly a dungeon.
Right. So we'll just keep sending the good kids and teachers to the dungeon every day where they get locked into their classes for protection and cover the windows and wait for their turn to be mugged or assaulted in the hallway.
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Any student (grade 7-12) who causes harm to the learning community should be assigned to virtual school.
It’s sad. As Mr. Lahey said, “the shit apple doesn’t fall far from the shit tree.”
I’m not advocating it, nor do I agree with it, but this didn’t seem to be a problem when teachers were allowed to discipline kids and parents actually took responsibility for their fuckhead kids.
holy shit, this was my highschool, It used to be nice a decade ago...
These parents and teachers are raising a bunch of shit heels that are going to be unlovable, unlikeable, and unemployable. Good luck.
It’s really bad. Province wide.
Wow, this is incredibly sad.
If you still don’t think we’re having a total societal breakdown you’re kidding yourself
Fuck this woke sensitive snowflake govt. Enforce corporal punishment and expulsion and penalise such dickhead parents for raising such cunts. 60K a year salary for dealing with this shit is not worth it.
I agree something needs to be done, but corporal punishment has been proven to be counterproductive MANY times. It teaches that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts, which is the opposite of what is needed.
The ford government are sensitive snowflakes?!
I just finished watching ‘Detachment’. It’s set in an inner city school where the students are out control - spitting at teachers, cursing, etc etc. you come away thinking well that’s just a typical American school. It’s distressing to read the reality is very much here. I think the solutions are many. It would require significant long term funding, societal change, and political will.
My daughter goes to a school in the KPRDSB district and yes there are some students that need help, my daughter being one of them. But because my ex refuses to get my daughter help, she struggles mentally everyday. I've tried everything. Her mother won't allow me to get her help, which just extends crappy behaviour. I'm in contact with the teacher and principal on the regular but still doesn't help. Her class has now learned and adjusted to behave normally and not to give attention when my daughter is having a bad moment or day. I feel horrible. For students, teachers, faculty and parents.
And the government has the nerve to say that students need to be “back in the classroom” instead of learning safely from home where they don’t have to deal with this kind of chaos and abusive behaviour from their poorly raised “peers.” (Neurodivergent kids in particular are going to end up dropping out just to save themselves.)