The Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association continues to sound the alarm on the rising number of violent and aggressive incidents happening in schools every day in this province. The results of a recent Access to Information request for the 2023-24 school year show these occurrences are still trending upwards.
"Earlier in 2024, our Association shared some startling figures about the increasing frequency and severity of violent and aggressive incidents in our schools, and I'm disheartened to learn that things are not getting any better," said Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association President, Trent Langdon. "While we continue to analyze the data received from our ATIPP request covering the entire 2023-24 school year, what we do see is that our predictions 8 months ago were well-founded. The continued increase in violence and aggression is concerning."
The data received from various sources shows the total number of reported violent/aggressive incidents has risen from 3,659 in 2018-19 to 4,052 during the 2023-24 school year. This reflects an average increase in reported incidents per day in schools, from 20 per day in 2018-19 to 22 per day last year.
Following a record low during the 2019-20 school year, likely due to the pandemic-related suspension of in-school instruction, there have been year-over-year increases in reported occurrences of violence and aggression, with a 26% increase from 2022-23 to 2023-24. Incidents of physical violence or assault increased by 29% between 2022-2023 and 2023-2024. This is a disturbing, but often hidden, reality that students and teachers are faced with daily.
"We acknowledge government's willingness to participate in meetings of the NLTA initiated School Safety Coalition and recognize some initiative government has taken recently in an effort to improve school safety. However, the addition of six Teaching and Learning Assistant positions across over 250 schools is just not going to resolve this issue," said President Langdon. "We have already seen some serious incidents during the first couple months of 2024-25. The time is long overdue for government to make significant investments in our public K-12 education system to address this troubling trend. Students and school staff deserve safe and secure schools the working conditions for teachers ARE the learning conditions for students."
For more information
3 Kenmount Road
St. John's Newfoundland
Canada A1B 1W1
www.nlta.nl.ca
