The armed assault on a teacher on Thursday sent shockwaves through the education community. Both teachers and school administrators are worried about the increase in violence in certain neighborhoods of Montreal.
“I’m sure there are a lot of teachers who came back to school today with a funny state of mind. It’s traumatic to know that a colleague has been attacked in the workplace, ”says Catherine Beauvais-St-Pierre, president of the Alliance des professors de Montréal.
Thursday morning, a teacher from the John-F.-Kennedy school, in the Saint-Michel district, was the victim of an armed attack. A 16-year-old was charged with attempted murder on Friday morning. The professor was transported to a hospital, but his life is not in danger.
The president of the Montreal Association of School Directions (AMDES) recalls that students also witnessed the assault.
“It sows concern. It is very important that our students feel safe in schools and we must do everything to preserve this feeling of safety, ”says Kathleen Legault.
Violence in schools is not “a recent phenomenon”, recalls Mr.me Beauvais-St-Pierre. She relates that when she started teaching, she had to confiscate a brass knuckles “homemade with rusty nails” from a sixth-grade student in a school in the Saint-Michel district.
“There is a lack of resources in the education sector and we often have a feeling of powerlessness. In some neighborhoods, this feeling is even more important, ”says Mme Beauvais-St-Pierre, who cites, for example, the lack of psychologists in schools.
School principals note that the incidents of violence that have occurred in recent weeks are “isolated, but serious”. “Is what we see is the tip of the iceberg?” »Asks Kathleen Legault.
The president of the teachers’ union at the Center de service scolaire de Montréal indeed believes that there is a “tendency to cover up violent events” that occur in schools.
“Everything that is violence is a bit trivialized. We choose to protect the image of the school to the detriment of the safety of teachers, ”says Catherine Beauvais-St-Pierre.
AMDES calls for the establishment of a concertation table for the greater Montreal area because “the school cannot solve everything”.
“There may be actions that can be taken now, but we must also look at the medium term, because violence is complex,” says its president Kathleen Legault.