Teachers union slams lax conduct policy

SARA MINOGUE

At the same time as the Iqaluit District Education Authority is revising their student conduct policy, the Federation of Nunavut Teachers is gearing up to tackle the same problem from a different perspective — violence against teachers and schools.

The union’s leader, Jimmy Jacquard, says the policy does not go far enough to protect teachers from violent students.

“Our members in Iqaluit here would by and large feel that if a teacher gets punched in the face, a principal only being able to give a five-day suspension is not enough,” he said.

Teachers in Nunavut are assaulted daily, Jacquard said, and the problem is growing.

Verbal assaults are the most common, but teachers are also pushed, shoved and even physically attacked. That happened to one Iqaluit teacher last fall, when a student ran out of the school office to attack him.

“We’ve had death threats. We have had a knifing incident at the high school too, and around the North.”

Jacquard counts dozens of physical attacks on teachers this year, and says some teachers have taken time off work after being shaken by an incident.

If you’re surprised by the violence, that’s because, in Jacquard’s words, the problem has become “normalized.”

“We’ve had to encourage people to report things,” he said. “Even being sworn at. We want to get a record of that here in the office. Violence is so normalized now that you could have a teacher that gets sworn at, or even gets shoved. It would be a big deal in other jurisdictions, where here, a lot of times it goes unreported and people just think that it’s a part of working.”

Next fall, the FNT plans to wage a campaign to raise awareness of violence in schools, and promote safe learning. That message will be spread on posters and bookmarks sent to all schools.

Until that happens, violence could contribute to the high teacher turnover.

“We’ve had teachers that are leaving this year, one of the reasons being violence. No one in particular has said, ‘I’m leaving because it’s too violent,’ but it has been a factor.”