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"Shocking" School Suspension Numbers Show Need For Province-Wide Reporting |
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Written by NDP News Release
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Tuesday, 08 November 2005 |
November 8, 2005 - Halifax, NS - NDP Education Critic Bill Estabrooks is calling on Education Minister Jamie Muir to direct all of the province's school boards to standardize the tracking of school suspensions after learning about 17,500 school suspensions that took place last school year.
"Based on the data my office collected, we determined there were over 17,500 suspensions in the five school boards that responded," says Estabrooks. "In all of my years as an educator, I was
shocked by what's going on in our schools."
"Violence against students and teachers, bullying, drugs, and weapons in our schools. Why would the Minister want to delay province-wide reporting on this information?"
The NDP requested 2004-05 suspension information from all eight of the province's school boards and received the requested information from five boards. Based on those that responded, data showed over 25% of the province's suspensions were for physical assault, verbal assault, or bullying. There were 909 suspensions related to drugs or alcohol, and another 873 related to smoking. There were a further 112 suspensions for assaults on teachers.
"The Department announced it would be tracking this information from 2003 onward, but still hasn't put a standardized system in place. Why?"
"Without this system, we can't look at comparisons across boards or measure whether things are getting better or worse."
"The Department needs to lead this effort to show students, parents, teachers, and the community at large that it is serious about addressing behaviour in our schools." |
