About 23 per cent of elementary school students and 32 of high school students in Simcoe County report not feeling safe at school, according to survey results collected by the board.
The 2023-24 school climate survey completed by students attending public schools in Simcoe County was provided to trustees on June 12, and shows that nearly one in four elementary students and one in three secondary students said they don’t feel safe at school.
Last year’s survey results showed one in five elementary students and one in four secondary students report not feeling safe at school.
The results raised questions for Simcoe County District School Board Collingwood/Wasaga Beach trustee Mike Foley.
“My concern lies in the question, do you feel safe in school? Since last year, there seems to be a lot of kids in our schools that don’t feel safe,” said Foley during the June 12 meeting. “Why are students feeling unsafe?”
“Last year the common thought was COVID but I don’t think that can be it again this year. There’s such a significant increase,” he said.
Students in Grades 4 to 12 from the SCDSB participate in a school climate survey annually, which was completed in March this year. The board noted a 92-per-cent participation rate for elementary students (18,845 responses for Grades 4 to 8) and a 75-per-cent participation rate (13,175 responses) for secondary students this year.
Orillia/Severn/Ramara trustee and chair Jodi Lloyd said she was happy to see how many students participated in the survey this year. Questions in the survey ranged on topics such as mental health, inclusion and belonging.
“It’s a phenomenal participation rate,” she said. “There’s a lot of positive feedback here. I know school is different for every student.”
“It’s important that we take this data and use it as an opportunity to make change,” said Lloyd.
New Tecumseth trustee Sarah Beitz asked why there was no year-over-year trend data included in this year’s report.
“Looking in my journal, I know I’ve asked for it for several years,” she said.
Superintendent of Education Scott Young said the report is intended to include the highlights with a plan to release a more detailed report this fall.
When contacted last week, Simcoe County Ontario Secondary School Teacher’s Federation bargaining unit president Jen Hare said it was obvious why students aren’t feeling as safe in schools as they once were.
“I think it’s fundamentally because they are seeing an increase in violent behaviour from fellow students,” Hare told Village Media. “They are seeing their trusted adults stressed to the max trying to address student behaviour and possibly not getting support from administration. Young people are very intuitive.”
“It’s reaching a boiling point,” she said.
When asked about the outcome of the SCDSB’s school climate survey, Hare said she was sad, but not surprised.
“We hear it from our members as well that they don’t feel safe walking into their school buildings everyday,” said Hare.
On June 6, the Ontario Secondary School Teacher’s Federation (OSSTF) released the result of a survey of their members that showed that 75 per cent of their education workers reported that “there are more incidents of violence” since they began working in Ontario schools, and one in three members reported having personally had physical force used against them at work.
“The alarming results of our survey highlight a disturbing reality: violence in Ontario schools is not just a rare occurrence, but a growing threat to the safety and well-being of staff and students alike,” OSSTF president Karen Littlewood said in a news release, with the release calling violence in schools an “epidemic.”
In April, the SCDSB released an abridged version of their annual suspension and expulsion report, which noted that in 2022/23, there were 4,861 suspensions recorded for 2,996 students, which was a slight increase over 2021/22 numbers, which showed 4,548 suspensions that year.
Village Media inquired to the board for a copy of the full 2022-23 report, however the board denied the request, referring to the report as an "internal document."
“This document is not available publicly and cannot be made public as confidentiality could be compromised,” said the board’s manager of communications Sarah Kekewich in an email.
However, a copy of the report obtained by Village Media shows there were 35 different types of infractions that led to suspensions last year, the most common being "conduct injurious to the moral tone of the school" (29 per cent or 1,428 instances), conduct injurious to the well-being of others (15 per cent or 731 instances), and fighting (10 per cent or 474 instances).
"Conduct injurious to the moral tone of the school" is not defined under section 306 of the Education Act, and determining whether an action falls into this category is left up to the school's principal.
Also included were 420 instances of smoking/vaping on school property and 352 of activity motivated by prejudice/bias/hate.
Violent incidents as defined by the Ministry of Education through Section 310 of the Education Act are separated out in the report.
Under the ministry’s definition, violent incidents include possessing a weapon (including possessing a firearm), physical assault causing bodily harm requiring medical attention, sexual assault, robbery, using a weapon to cause or to threaten bodily harm to another person, extortion and hate/bias-motivated occurrences.
Under that definition, there were 96 more instances of conduct injurious to the moral tone of the school, 71 of weapons possession, 39 of conduct injurious to the well-being of others, 26 of physical assault requiring treatment of a medical practitioner, 13 of using a weapon to cause bodily harm, and 11 of activity motivated by prejudice/bias/hate.
Hare said she hears overwhelmingly from her members that there are things students would have been suspended for years ago that they wouldn’t be suspended for today. For example, she said if a student has a first-offence violent incident, they get sent home for the rest of the day but an official suspension letter is not put on their file.
“There’s a lot more leniency. The bar has been changed,” said Hare. “The fact that suspensions are staying the same indicates to me that we only are suspending kids in very extreme cases.”
The report obtained by Village Media also shows the three year trend of suspensions broken down by gender remains about a 70-30 split with more males receiving suspensions than females.
According to the report, suspension rates for the 2022-23 school year were higher than in pre-pandemic years.
About eight per cent of the board's suspensions last year were related to incidents off-site, meanwhile about 27 per cent of incidents occurred in the classroom, 24 per cent on school grounds, 16 per cent in hallways, 11 per cent in washrooms and four per cent in "other" locations. Two per cent occurred on a school bus, two per cent in an office, and two per cent in a parking lot.
Suspensions in the Simcoe County public school board ranged in duration from one to 20 days, but the average length was three days, according to the report. Fewer than 10 per cent of the total 4,861 suspensions lasted more than five days.
Broken down by grade, students between grades seven to 10 received the most suspensions with a total of 690 Grade 7 students suspended, 645 Grade 8s, 880 Grade 9s and 756 Grade 10s. There were 2,438 secondary student (grades 9-12), 1,335 intermediate student (grades 7-8), 1,079 junior student (grades 4-6) and nine primary student (grades 1-3) suspensions in the 2022-23 school year.
While the issue of suspensions and violence in schools is one being felt across the province, the SCDSB does stand out with their numbers compared to their overall enrolment, and their unwillingness to make the full suspension report public.
For comparison, the Toronto District School Board – the largest in Canada – serves approximately 238,000 students each year. Their suspension report for 2022/23 shows 4,907 suspensions which translates to a suspension rate of 1.57 per cent.
The total enrolment of the SCDSB is currently 57,090 students, making their suspension rate five per cent.
At the neighbouring Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board, they noted 1,219 suspensions in 2022/23 with 23,500 student total, which makes their suspension rate about five per cent as well. Their most common reasons for suspensions started with fighting/violence (17.8 per cent), bullying (4.5 per cent) and uttering a threat (4.3 per cent).
Overall provincial data for 2022/23 is not yet available, however for the 2021/22 school year, 2.23 per cent of students across Ontario schools were suspended.
Both the TDSB and the SMCDSB shared their data on suspensions within a day of Village Media requesting them.
Village Media has reported on multiple instances of violence in Simcoe County schools, including fighting caught on camera at Orillia Secondary School and students from Collingwood Collegiate Institute and Our Lady of the Bay Catholic High School fighting in an intersection between the two Collingwood schools.
Overall, Hare said suspensions aren’t the only tool that schools can use to address student behaviour, and she supports moving away from those types of disciplinary measures.
“Suspensions are a tool that schools can use to address student behaviour, but they don’t really address root causes of those issues,” she said. “The bigger issue on the back end is that systematically, we need more supports for students.”
Hare said that teachers don’t have degrees in social work to help students navigate the larger social issues that students grapple with these days such as mental health, food and income insecurity.
“It’s a bigger problem than just dealing with those suspensions,” she said.
