Violence continues to plague school support staff

Violence continues to be a scourge in our schools. A survey conducted by the Ad Hoc Research firm in collaboration with the Fédération du personnel de soutien scolaire (FPSS-CSQ), reveals that in the current school year, physical and non-physical violence has increased among those who experience it.

“This survey was carried out two years after the 2022 survey and the problem still hasn’t been resolved, despite the intervention of the Minister of Education,” says FPSS-CSQ President Éric Pronovost.

Students continue to be the primary source of violence

Among the school support staff who report being victims of violence, nine in ten (90%) identify students as the source of the incident, making this the major cause of violence in our schools. Students are also the main instigators of physical and non-physical violence. A third of the respondents blame them for physical attacks (33%) and two-fifths of the employees surveyed blame them for other forms of violence (36%).

Parents and co-workers were the second most common source of violence (22% and 18% respectively), the vast majority of which was non-physical.

School support staff face two types of violence

Three out of four respondents (70%) have experienced both physical and non-physical violence. This proportion was 51% in 2022.

Acts of physical violence come in the form of hitting (56%), the throwing of objects (56%), pushing and shoving (39%), scratching and scraping (32%), pinching (29%) and spitting (27%).

Acts of non-physical violence come in the form of shouting (69%), profanity or swearing (48%), abusive language (46%), intimidation and threats (27%), harassment (19%) aggressive phone calls (17%) and rumors or false allegations (13%).

Acts that are not condemned

Only 10% of employees who have experienced violence systematically file an incident or accident report, and almost half of victims (47%) never do so.

There are many reasons why employees are reluctant to file incident or accident reports. Some think it won’t make a difference (50%), that it’s not serious enough (36%), that the forms take too long to fill in (24%), that there are no witnesses to the incident (18%), that they can “put up with it” (16%), that it will damage their relationship with the school administration (14%), or that the children need to be “given a chance” (13%).

5,127 people took part in the survey, which was conducted between February 6 and March 22, 2024. The maximum margin of error associated with the survey is 1.3% with a confidence level of 95%.

Urgency to act

“Despite the presentation of the Plan de prévention de la violence et de l’intimidation dans les écoles by Minister Drainville, nothing is changing. He’s invited us to a meeting on May 24 to discuss the issue, but we need to take action right now to correct the situation in our schools and educational establishments. We can no longer tolerate this, because the health and safety of school support staff are at stake,” pleads Éric Pronovost.

The causes need to be addressed

“There are a number of causes for this outbreak of violence in our schools and establishments. With fewer workers providing direct services to students, it’s just not possible to do as much prevention as we’d like, and it’s harder to intervene quickly. Decision-makers also need to take the situation seriously. We have to stop saying it’s part of the job and we need to refuse to accept situations that are unacceptable. We need zero tolerance,” concludes Pronovost.