SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Damned if they do and damned if they don’t

GUEST BLOG BY LOU D’AMORE, ONTARIO EDUCATOR

The longer I remain in the teaching profession the more I realize that a very small number of students use up the great majority of the available resources. These few students, who have an established history of negative behaviour which our system tolerates and never truly deals with, are the same students who take up most of our teachers’ time and energy. The cost of “educating” these individuals is very high and the added value is very small. Meanwhile, the chaos they cause in our schools is debilitating and it weakens teachers’ efforts to teach the majority.

Such is the case with the ever-increasing number of false accusations being made against teachers these days. I teach in a high-needs school, and this year, a boy in grade 3 accused TWO male teachers of physically assaulting him. They were off school for more than two weeks before proven innocent. The boy ? Well, he was “unconsequenced” (yes this is an education buzzword).

Three years ago, a boy in grade 5 accused me of slapping him across the face while he sang in my choir at an Ash Wednesday service held in our church. It didn’t matter that the church was filled with 400 people who saw nothing; it didn’t matter that I had a 32-year unblemished history of positive teaching experience; it didn’t even matter that the boy (on medication for his behaviour) was being questioned by his psychologist when he reported the “attack” (the psychologist had been called in because the boy was lighting fires in our school) – none of this mattered because the Children’s Aid was still called and I was kept out of my teaching position for eight weeks! It was personally devastating.

The lawyers were called in, the Children’s Aid investigators were called in, my union reps became involved, substitute teachers were called in to replace me, and pretty soon a minor economic stimulus had been unleashed.

Armed with a Children’s Aid report stating that my accuser’s story was “inconsistent and not credible”, I finally returned to work.  I was encouraged by my union to ask that my accuser be “consequenced”. We met with my superintendent and we argued that as teachers we are responsible for teaching basic morality and, because this boy had lied, it was our responsibility to make him understand the damage he had caused. The superintendent threatened to end the meeting right there – he wasn’t going to stand by while we accused a poor innocent child of lying. He forbade  any kind of meeting with the boy or any kind of reprimand. Apparently, what happened between the boy, Children’s Aid, and me, was irrelevant to my school board.

The details of my ordeal are very disturbing, and more so because I’m convinced that this same nightmare is happening to many other teachers. Union officials, Children’s Aid and the lawyers I talked to all admit they are seeing more of these cases. They can even see patterns – apparently, music, French and substitute teachers are the most common victims.  The great majority of accused teachers are found to be innocent.

We need to ask our politicians to mandate our school boards to keep track of these false accusations and require a report on the costs incurred to resolve these cases. Tax dollars earmarked for the classroom are being wasted carrying out these teacher witch-hunts and we should all know the extent of the problem so it can be fixed.

I can tell you that the school boards are very secretive about investigations on their teachers – best to pay the hush money and protect the corporate image. No one in the system wants to draw attention to the problem. Accused teachers are isolated and discouraged from telling their story.

I am somewhat encouraged by a teacher who recently came forward to tell how she became the subject of a false accusation. The CBC ran at least two articles about her on consecutive days. Three years ago, when this happened to me, I spoke to the CBC and they weren’t interested in doing any sort of story. Perhaps the CBC is realizing that these accusations on teachers are not isolated events but rather, a growing problem that is beginning to cripple the education process.