Speak up, like young Léa, who denounced what she considers to be “inappropriate behavior” on the part of one of her teachers at the Vanguard school, as reported by our reporter Stéphanie Vallet , requires courage. This call for help, because it is indeed one, requires close support imbued with openness and finesse on the part of a school administration, which has clearly failed here. However, several stories that have made the headlines suggest that the failing treatment of whistleblowing by students in certain secondary schools, while not the rule, is far from exceptional.
In Léa’s case, the mess is such that the teenager still has to deal with panic attacks a year after speaking out, in addition to being out of school. The approach of the latter has indeed led to its pure and simple exclusion. First from the course given by the teacher with whom she says she experienced these discomforts, then from the school itself, the conditions imposed on her return having been deemed inadmissible by the young girl and her family. In doing so, the Vanguard School fails in its primary mission: to educate a child whose path has visibly been turned upside down.
To his credit, the Vanguard School isn’t the only one that didn’t know how to handle such a crisis. Alarm signals do not stop flashing. About ten days ago, students from Sources high school in Dollard-des-Ormeaux contacted TVA to denounce the apathy shown by their school in a case of sexual assault involving a student. Earlier this winter, the management of Saint-Laurent secondary school had been singled out for not having supposedly listened attentively enough to the toxic climate rotting its basketball program. There, three coaches were charged with sex crimes against two students.
Far from being isolated, this omerta repeatedly denounced prompted four organizations committed to young people to join their voices in demanding the adoption of a law aimed at preventing and combating sexual violence in primary and secondary schools in the Quebec. The Minister of Education is himself well aware of the shortcomings of the current system. Bills are currently under study to better regulate the complaint process in these extrasensitive environments because of the young age of their clienteles, but also the relationship of authority that prevails between teachers and students. Their necessity is beyond doubt. Just like that of equipping service centers now.
Knowing how many locks have been put in place in recent years to secure workplaces and college and university education — Quebec has even set up a court specializing in sexual and domestic violence — it is difficult to explain the delay taken by secondary and primary schools. It’s still a peak! The problem is however documented. Already in 2018, in these same pages, Montreal secondary school students launched a cry from the heart that had the effect of a bombshell: yes, sexual violence takes place regularly in schools without it being taken seriously. Both public and private. In fact, they “are so common there that they have become trivialized,” said speaker Émilie Martinak.
Dragged into the heart of the storm, the Montreal School Services Center had adopted the very first intervention protocols on sexualized behavior and sexual violence at school. Still, four years later, nothing forces schools to do the same. This can not go on. Ethically and humanely, everything pleads for schools to act before the weight of legislation comes to force their hand.
After two years spent opening our eyes to the fundamental, but oh so imperfect, role of youth protection systems in the company of Régine Laurent, in the wake of the mediatized death of the little girl from Granby, it is paradoxical to say the least that we have neglected to secure in passing this other safety net which is the school. A large number of children with no history struggling with troubling and debilitating specific situations are identified and accompanied there. Often very well, moreover. However ill-equipped it may be on the front line of sexual abuse, the school cannot evade its obligations when it suits or exceeds it.
Let’s not forget that the children and teenagers who attend our elementary and secondary schools grew up while the #MeToo wave swept through the world and here. They have seen and heard our tears. Since 2018, they have sex education courses, the contents of which are compulsory. For them, consent is therefore not an abstract matter, they know how to put words to what they see and what they experience. Founded or not, clumsy or not, any request for help from them should first be welcomed as such. Now.