STEPHEN RICCIO
PONTIAC Oct. 21, 2020
While a survey carried out by SPEHR, the local French teacher’s union, found discouraging answers from teachers regarding questions of violence, Denis Rossignol, director general for Hauts-Bois de l’Outaouais School Service Center (CSSHBO), believes that more comprehensive data is needed to solve the issue.
“[The survey is] not based on data, we need data from everything,” he said.
Rossignol said the various responses of the survey reveal . . .
real issues and that the next step is to dissect these issues to find solutions.
The most alarming findings of the survey were that 49 per cent of CSSHBO teachers reported experiencing physical violence while 88 per cent reported experiencing verbal or psychological violence.
Only 36-42 per cent of responding teachers within the CSSHBO said that they were satisfied with school management’s response to complaints of physical or verbal violence, but Rossignol denied the idea that they are trivializing these complaints.
“We don’t say it’s not real, [that] it’s not that bad,” he said. “It’s bad, we know that we have a problem with violence. The only issue we said is we need to improve the data, we need data.”
Rossignol explained that there are programs in place for addressing complaints, but he acknowledged that the survey’s information needs to be the building block for improved protocols.
“We have to adjust the tools, we have to work on the tools to make sure [teachers] get the response they need for the teacher and the kids, because at the [end of the day] we have to work with kids,” he said.
