What good is all the effort schools invest in teaching kids to be nice and play well together when some of the real bullies are those who pick them up at 3 pm?
Whether it's swearing at principals or barging into class to scold the teacher, Canadian schools say they are seeing a rising tide of Parent Rage. "A growing number of parents seem very comfortable mouthing off at the school secretary, marching in and calling the teacher names — `You f---ing so-and-so' — often in front of the children," said superintendent Rauda Dickinson, who oversees downtown schools for the Toronto District School Board...
"Compared to a few years ago, it's everywhere"...
In a nationwide poll of school violence, the Canadian Teachers' Federation found 59 per cent of principals across the country in 2001 had witnessed at least one parent verbally abuse a teacher that year, and about 23 per cent had seen a parent physically assault or intimidate a teacher, said federation president Terry Price...
Ironically, some of this parent rage is erupting over the new Safe Schools Act:
The Ontario Principals' Council is concerned at the frequency with which parents threaten to sue schools over Ontario's new Safe Schools Act — both the parents of victims and the parents of bullies, said president Doug Acton. "Bullying is a real hot-button issue for parents. They can get angry if their child is disciplined, or angry if their child is bullied and the principal doesn't impose the maximum penalty."
So angry that they....go up to schools and bully the teachers. Or threaten a lawsuit at the drop of a hat, which can essentially be non-violent bullying.
"We have parents spitting, swearing and pushing principals from one end of their office to another in an attempt to intimidate them," said veteran principal Helen Evans of the Toronto School Administrators' Association, which represents principals and vice-principals across the city. "One mother marched into a hall and asked two girls to leave because she said 'By the time I'm finished with that a--hole teacher in there, you won't want to be around,'" Evans said.
When Emily Noble was a principal, a drunken father stomped into her office waving a gun because he was angry his daughter had broken her arm on a school skating trip. When Noble, now president of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario, asked him to leave he replied "If it happens again, I'll come back and shoot you." Noble had police issue a restraining order.
Gee, what better parent could there be than one who threatens school authorities when his child - as children do - gets harmed when learning to skate? The sad thing is that this guy probably sees himself as Father of the Year for his "protectiveness." Another sad thing is that it's not hard to see why there are discipline problems within schools when the parental examples are this poor.
(Hat tip: Reginleif.)
Posted by kswygert at February 6, 2005 06:20 PM