By Gazette Staff
August 18th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
It won’t be long before parents are doing their return to school shopping and the students get into the routine of going to school each day.
It is that returning to school that has the NDP Opposition government very concerned as well.
Global News revealed that violence in schools rose by 77 per cent since the Ford Government was elected in 2018, with more than 4,400 incidents reported last year.
Teachers have to cope with unruly students and at the same time, deliver the curriculum during the term.
“The numbers tell a clear story: we are seeing a crisis of violence develop as our children’s needs go unmet at school. Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg as many incidents go unreported,” said NDP MPP Pasma.
“Our kids are bearing the brunt of Doug Ford’s cuts to education, from larger class size to fewer EAs and support staff, to the lack of mental health professionals, and less supports for special needs students. Our education workers and teachers shouldn’t have to put up with injuries as a routine part of the job.
“The Premier has been busy listening to his developer friends about moving highways and building fantasy tunnels, but it’s about time he listens to concerned parents who just want their kids to be safe at school. We have the solutions, the Government just needs to act – it must hire more qualified staff in classrooms so our kids have a safe place to learn.”
The Ontario NDP announced its Emergency Plan to End School Violence and is calling on the Ford Government to implement it. The plan includes:
- Funding to hire additional qualified staff, including mental health professionals, education assistants, child and youth workers, and other education workers.
- Funding for comprehensive training for all workers and supervisors.
- A sector-specific regulation for education under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
- A permanent provincial health and safety working group to review and adapt current policies regarding workplace violence in the education sector.
- A single province-wide online reporting system for violent incidents and data collection to understand the full scope of the problem.
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Good morning, Pepper…I’m disappointed you didn’t leverage your journalistic skills to remind your readership another factor that could have contributed to the rise in violence in Ontario schools since 2018 – that being, the province’s largest school board (TDSB) voting to end the School Resource Officer (SRO) program which placed police officers in schools (the program was fully discontinued in 2021).
I’m not trying to suggest the elimination of the SRO program was the singular/major consideration contributing to the hike in violence but at the same time, I think it’s a tad arbitrary to lay the entire blame on the Ford government.
This comment will probably cause some people to be upset, but so be it.
Schools need to go back to basics. Teaching.
Schools have become much more and in effect taken over some of the roles that parents need to address.
How can any teacher be responsible for all of the issues listed in the article? It is not possible.
There needs to shift back when teachers could speak to parents about their child without the parent indicating the problem is not with the child but with the teacher.
Let us not remember that testing has shown that our students are failing.
The purpose of schools is to teach, not to be responsible for the raising of children where parents are practicing”gentle parenting” (whatever that means).
Time to stop blaming a government for violence in schools, and look to the causes for this behaviour.
Editor’s note: Students are not failing. Many are doing incredibly well. Full story here: https://burlingtongazette.ca/three-burlington-students-achieved-outstanding-success-at-the-2025-canada-wide-science-fair/
Let us not remember that testing has shown that our students are failing.
The purpose of schools is to teach, not to be responsible for the raising of children where parents are practicing”gentle parenting” (whatever that means).
Time to stop blaming a government for violence in schools, and look to the causes for this behaviour.