The Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association says violence in schools has reached a level never seen before and, alongside ballooning classroom sizes and rapidly declining teacher support, has left its members wrestling widespread burnout.
The union called reporters to a news conference Tuesday morning, pointing to a projected 40 per cent increase in violence in schools this year compared to the 2022-23 school year — from about 20 reported incidents per day five years ago to 29 per day reported in the first three months of the 2023-24 school year.
“We felt it was time to do more to raise awareness of the hidden reality in our schools,” president Trent Langdon told reporters.
Langdon described a recent case of a teacher who ended up in the emergency department and now requires facial reconstruction after an alleged assault by an eight-year-old girl.
“Our special services teachers … often have to wear Kevlar sleeves, because there’s biting,” he said.
Langdon also pointed to last year’s brutal attack on a student at Prince of Wales Collegiate in St. John’s, saying that near-murders were unheard of when he began working in the education system two decades ago.
“It’s a different world,” he said.
“You look at the evening news — that represents itself in our buildings. We have the children of all of those families that are being represented in our school system.
“The stressors of inflation, the stressors of poverty, stressors of homelessness, the stressors of of having a parent who’s involved in the legal system, mental health issues, backlogs in our mental health system — all of that finds its way into school.”
Newfoundland and Labrador’s teachers’ union is projecting a 40 per cent increase in classroom violence this year. That works out to 3,900 violent incidents, with 30 warranting calls to police. NLTA president Trent Langdon blames government inattention and a shortage of teachers for the worsening situation.
Rosemary Lawton, a former music teacher who is researching violence against music teachers for her master’s thesis, told Radio-Canada of one incident involving a student being put in a head lock by another student who started “using him as a baseball bat against a brick wall until he lost consciousness.”
Through her research, she also heard from a teacher who had her ribs broken by a xylophone thrown by a student.
“A lot of, you know, non-core subject courses … teacher supports were not put in those classrooms,” she said. “I was too small, I knew I would have gotten hurt.”
The NLTA has for years called on the provincial government to shrink class sizes and put more money into schools.
“Smaller class sizes, more teacher supports, more … adult bodies in a classroom to help with students who have exceptionalities is so important,” Lawton said.
“If you want to give kids equal opportunities, you need to make sure that you’re providing those kids with the supports that they need.”
The 2024 budget, released last week, earmarked almost $3 million for student assistants in K-12 schools, which the province says is equivalent to 104 full-time positions. Langdon says much of that money had already been announced, however, and does little to offer more resources to cope with the rise in violence.
For example, in the case of the teacher needing facial reconstruction, “something as simple as a break” for the child outside the classroom may have avoided the outburst, Langdon said. However, no staff were available to look after the student.
“Day in and day out, we’re seeing this type of thing, where resources are unavailable,” Langdon said.
The NLTA’s campaign follows a “think-tank” questionnaire sent out to members earlier this year, which asked teachers across the province to provide feedback on potential changes to the education system.
In the survey, 78 per cent of over 2,200 respondents said their working conditions were negatively affecting their well-being, and 86 per cent reported experiencing burnout.
Education Minister Krista Lynn Howell told reporters Tuesday afternoon the province is active in a violence prevention coalition created by the NLTA.
“All the folks at the table agreed that we don’t have one easy, sure-shot solution,” Howell said. “So we all committed to working on a plan together.”
Howell said the department is committed to reviewing its teacher allocations.
“If I had simply went out and … threw money at it, we’d be here having a different conversation. I’d be accused of doing it without really knowing what I was into, or what the money was for,” Howell said.
“It’s important that we figure out what the appropriate allocations are, what teacher resources are needed, and how we can best meet the needs of students.”
Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Click here to visit our landing page.
