Toronto Schools Need Help, But How Badly?

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The panel was formed after 15-year-old Jordan Manners was tragically shot to death in a C.W. Jefferys Collegiate hallway. They completed a 1000 page report which was supposed to be released on Monday, but was leaked to the news media, causing the panel to host a news conference at the Toronto District School Board headquarters on Thursday. The report goes into graphic detail and includes a five page description of the death of Jordan Manners, based on interviews and the story of a sexual assault on a female Muslim student in a school washroom by six males.

Julian Falconer, who chairs the panel, bluntly blamed the lack of funding to the school boards and society, saying at a press conference "Jordan Manners died on May 23, 2007, of flat neglect – pure neglect," adding that "There were insufficient supports in place in our system to encourage him to make better choices."

Falconer also made some statements that paint a picture of a grim situation for Metro schools. "You could fill a Home Hardware with the amount of knives kids bring to school," he said. "But we don't find them."

C.W. Jefferys and neighbouring Westview Centennial, located near Jane and Finch are situated in arguably one of the most infamous neighbourhoods of Metro Toronto.

At Westview, a school survey found that 23 percent of students knew somebody who had brought a gun to school in the last two years, while almost 25% of them said that they had seen a gun at school. However, Falconer pointed out that the violence and threatening behaviour wasn't limited to the troubled area, there had been 54 gun related incidents elsewhere. Out of a total of 125 weapons incidents, robberies and sexual assaults reported at Toronto schools in the last two years, only five were at Jane-Finch schools.

As if to emphasize the 'culture of silence', the panel also said that many incidents in those schools go unreported. In fact the panel found that 80 percent of the female students surveyed by them indicated that they would not report a sexual assault attack. The communication problem seems to be evident all the way up to the principles office, as evidenced by an announcement earlier in the week, in which Toronto police have charged a former principle Charis Newton-Thompson and two vice-principals Silvio Tallevi and Stan Gordon, at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate, for not reporting the sexual assault incident of the Muslim girl mentioned in the report, though it is alleged that they had been aware of the incident. All six male suspects have since been charged with gang sexual assault, forcible confinement and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.

According to a report in the Globe and Mail, many teachers feel that they are not properly trained to deal with the serious issues that today's students face.

One who did not want to be identified, was quoted as saying "There are kids whose behaviour is so bad that 20 years ago they'd be told to leave school - they don't want to be there, they're not respectful, they're aggressive and quite prepared to be violent if they need to be - and yet the school system is trying to keep them in school and trying not to disaffect them by punishing them for everything,"

Morven Orr, a teacher with three decades of experience works with the board's Beginning Teacher Coaches program and recommends that all potential incidents should be reported to the principal. However, they have to be wary of making false accusations to the authorities. "If you do phone, the parent often knows it's come from the school and they're furious if there's no reason for it," she said. "They're often furious if there is a reason for it."

The panel suggested that additional funding could be used to buy metal detectors, but at the cost of $25,000 each, they could put the money to better use, with youth workers, extra-curricular activities and other prevention programs.

"It is not investing in (students) to buy metal detectors," Falconer said. "It is a quick fix with no guarantee of a solution."

Falconer said that the use of suspension as a disciplinary tool served no purpose, "We suspend in droves, and it fails." He also said "Marginalized youth cannot be punished into becoming engaged," arguing against zero tolerance policies, which conflict with the pressure to keep some kids in school.

The panel does recommend the use of dogs trained to sniff out guns hidden in random school lockers. Other suggestions made by the panel include an anonymous website that could be used by students to report violent acts and the hiring of full time counsellors and social workers at schools that are particularly affected by the problems.

A working group on student safety, headed by Board trustee Cathy Dandy, met on Friday, to develop a time-line for implementing the panel's recommendations and integrating them into the ones that are already underway. "We are not just going to blunder forward on this," she told The Star.

Premier Dalton McGuinty said that the province would be working with the Toronto Board on the recommendations and wants to make sure that students and parents can 'genuinely' feel safe.

"The fact of the matter is that there are millions of children who attend school every single day in Ontario and they do so safely and without incident. Not to say that there aren't some real issues in some communities and we need to do more to address those." he said.

An article in the National Post takes a different approach to the subject, than the panel, by implying that the panel is 'painting all 102 Toronto public high schools using the same broad brush.' The population of the two Jane-Finch schools equate to approximately 1.5% of the city's 270,000 public high school students and writer John Turley-Ewart says that 'It is folly to pretend these schools, located in pockets of poverty and single-parent communities, present the same risks for students in schools located in high-income, stable-family areas such as Riverdale and North Toronto.' He does agree however, that few would dispute the need for more social workers or reforms to the Toronto District School Board's education culture 'which leaves teachers silent in the face of violence for fear of losing promotions or being accused of racism.'

Regardless of one's position, the escalating violence in the city has no place in the high schools and finding blame in society is an obvious presumption, that answers few questions, unless suggestions for improvement are made and action is taken to reverse the trend. The suggestions have been made, now it's time to follow up on them. The real tragedy is that a 15 year old boy had to die, for it to get this far.