‘My son should feel safe to go to school’ Parent makes plea to address violence in schools

Increased levels of violence in schools continues to be a concern, but officials with Thames Valley District School Board believe it will moderate as the impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic wane.

Officials also say that other measures area being taken to address violence in schools. But one London father says the reforms can't come fast enough for his child.

Chris Passmore says his 11-year-old son Emmett doesn't feel safe in school, and Passmore doesn't feel safe sending him there after assaults that resulted in two police reports and injuries.

"He had his head cut open here and two big lumps here,” Passmore says, gesturing to a spot over Emmett’s left ear.

Emmett entered a special education program at Westmount Public School in September.

Passmore says Emmett has been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as the result of abuse suffered at that hands of a caregiver as a young child.

He says Emmett has been targeted by two other students since entering school.

Passmore says he's had meetings with school administration but feels his concerns aren't being properly addressed.

"I don't want kids to be out of school but my son should feel safe to go to school,” he said.

"Whenever we have a violent incident it's investigated, it's analyzed,” says Dennis Wright, Thames Valley District School Board's superintendent of student achievement.

He says studies show there have been increased reports of violence as a result of the pandemic, and the post-pandemic economic fall-out.

"What we're seeing is a lot of families that are struggling with food insecurities with mental health issues,” Wright says. “As an overall-society, what that means is that those needs come out as, sometimes, behaviours."

He says it’s most often in junior-kindergarten and kindergarten students and in students from grades 8 to 10. Those are transition periods where students are finding new peers and new activities that reflect their personality and passion; like robotics programs, the arts or sports.

During the pandemic those options simply weren’t there for students.

Wright says other steps are being taken to monitor and address school violence. In the last two years the board has developed safe-and-inclusive schools plans to address current, pressing issues and an individual school level.

They can be found on the ‘safe schools’ link on the school’s website.

The board has also launched a system that identifies issues in each school, including bullying and violence, and sees them tracked all the way to his office for resolution.

Wright says that system will also provide accurate data to track trends at the board-level, and for individual schools.

He says that information will be analyzed on an ongoing basis.

Wright says that, while they do happen, suspensions or expulsions aren't the best solution. He says they disproportionately impact BIPOC students, particularly Black and Indigenous students.

He says the goal is always to change behaviours for the better, “We owe everybody and opportunity to correct behaviour, to get better. Otherwise, what we see are students who leave school early, they're expelled. Then we're really transferring that problem to the community."

Passmore says he simply wants what his son wants. In Emmett’s words, “I do want to be back in school. I want to go back and learn."

Passmore is hoping to get another meeting with board officials to make that happen.