The omerta decried at Saint-Laurent school, where three staff members are suspected of sexual crimes against minors, refers to this law of silence of the school network already denounced in 2018 by the Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge. The question still remains: can school staff report flaws in the system without risking reprisals?
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Teacher Kathya Dufault paid dearly for her speaking out in 2018. After denouncing the working conditions she deemed unacceptable at her high school, she faced dismissal proceedings. The Seigneurie-des-Mille-Îles school board (CSSMI) accused him of having “publicly criticized” her.
Four years later, the case of the Saint-Laurent school made him say: “The omerta is still there. It annoys me. »
In schools, continues Mme Dufault, “everything must always look perfect”. “Teachers have to get into this if they want to keep their jobs. »
She evokes the inflated notes, the teachers who are silenced, the diplomas at a discount, the “beautiful paintings” which do not reflect the reality on the ground.
In the wake of his public release, Jean-François Roberge, Minister of Education, had promised a clause in collective agreements aimed at freeing the speech of teachers who would need to “denounce the shortcomings” of the system.
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Jean-François Roberge, Minister of Education
On two occasions, Mr. Roberge tried to set up such a mechanism, which was ultimately deemed inappropriate, as such protection was already offered by the An Act to facilitate the disclosure of wrongdoings.
A teacher can denounce a situation that he deems unacceptable “without fear of reprisals, anonymously, to the Québec Ombudsman”, points out to The Press Florent Tanlet, Minister Roberge’s press officer.
But stepping up in this way means putting together a file, “an effort” that teachers, already in survival mode, cannot always provide, says Mélanie Hubert, president of the Syndicat de l’enseignement de l’ouest de Montréal (representing teachers at the Marguerite-Bourgeoys school service centre).
“With the energy of despair”, some do it – often by calling out to the media, specifies Mme Hubert – when situations become untenable.
“Preserving the image and the varnish”
Mélanie Hubert says it frankly. “We try to preserve the image and the veneer of the school service centre, of the school, sometimes of the administration. »
“Appearances, image, influence” weigh heavily in the balance.
In a lot of situations, we don’t want to bring in the police, launch investigations or react because it’s going to make us look bad. We try to settle things differently, to cover them up.
Mélanie Hubert, president of the West Montreal Education Union
Beyond the investigation process, suspensions and disciplinary measures, the teachers are afraid of “more invisible reprisals”: “fear of a management that will try to make us pay the price for what we have said by giving us the most difficult groups, by giving us the least interesting premises or schedules, by obstructing when we need help to get services”, lists Mme Hubert.
At Saint-Laurent school, an employee points out to The Press that one of the men arrested was a manager and that he had the power to poison the daily lives of the staff. Despite this, in recent days, employees have claimed to have tried in vain to sound the alarm in the face of certain facts that they considered disturbing.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Head office of the Marguerite-Bourgeoys school service center, including Saint-Laurent high school
As also did, in a completely different case, about twenty teachers, also from the Marguerite-Bourgeoys school service center (CSSMB). It took more than a decade of complaints against a janitor who harassed and touched them before he was finally fired last fall, not without having first worked in five schools through transfers.
Loyalty to the student, not to the managers
According to Pierre Trudel, professor at the Public Law Research Center of the University of Montreal, it is the whole culture of school service centers, too often authoritarian and opaque, that must be changed.
School staff, he adds, place their loyalties in the wrong place. “Loyalty is not due to the managers, but to the institution. So to the student. »
Parents who want to file a complaint are directed to the Student Ombudsman of their school service centre. In 2017, in a special report on the matter, the Québec Ombudsman highlighted the many shortcomings of these bodies, including excessively long delays, their lack of independence, their poor accountability, etc.
Quebec has therefore chosen to create a National Student Ombudsman. If actors in the world of education are pinning great hopes on this new version, Pierre Trudel doubts that it is the solution.
“It will have a room in the Marie-Guyart building [où travaillent les fonctionnaires du ministère de l’Éducation] and from his office in Quebec, he will receive e-mails from people who are experiencing problems in Gatineau, in Drummondville… That will make one more office that will be occupied, but I don’t really see what that can change”, unless, he hopes, that he has real means of investigation.
In short, Pierre Trudel believes that injured parents, students and school staff ultimately have only three options: the police, the media, the Human Rights Commission.
“And what do these three have in common?” he asks. It is to be completely independent of the school network, ”he notes.
Fear of reprisals, even among parents
Nicolas Prévost, president of the Quebec Federation of Educational Establishment Directors (FQDE), believes that the fear of reprisals, “but also the fear of harming the climate of the school”, explains in particular this reluctance of the staff to going there with denunciations, something never easy when it’s a manager or a colleague that you meet on a regular basis.
“This fear of reprisals is also that of parents, who are themselves afraid of harmful collateral effects for their children. »
Do we need other laws, other bodies, other programs? Mr. Prévost is convinced that “we already have everything we need”, in particular the Education Act which guarantees the right to free education, in a healthy and safe environment.
He also recalls that the school network benefits from a well-established plan (and accompanied by funding of several million dollars) to prevent and counter “any form of bullying against a student, a teacher and any other school personnel.
Requests often refused and ignored
The arrests at Saint-Laurent school are tarnishing the image that the Marguerite-Bourgeoys school service center has built for itself, in particular by issuing press releases in which it congratulates itself, for example, on being among the best employers in the country, on having a “graduation leader status” or having done well in the Grand Défi Pierre-Lavoie. But the requests made on various subjects in recent months by The Press to the communications department of the CSSMB have been repeatedly ignored. At the Montreal school service center, the largest in Quebec, The Press This is his third request for an interview with Jean-François Lachance, who was appointed in June by the Legault government to manage the guardianship put in place by Quebec. At the beginning of October, the service center told us that he was on vacation. When he returned at the end of October, our new request remained unanswered. A few days ago, the school service center told us that we would have to wait until after the break, when the new director general took office.