Imagine what a total failure the policy is when Zero tolerance is opposed by the marxist Leninists.....
torontosun.com
Delinquent Ontario students are going to be supported -- and not automatically suspended or expelled from school -- after the province abolishes zero-tolerance policies this fall, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said yesterday.
While critics are holding their applause until they see the changes, the move is being hailed by some who say the Safe Schools Act unfairly targets black youth and drives them into gangs.
It's wrong to expel a student onto the street without helping the student reintegrate back into the classroom, Wynne said.
"That does not make any sense to me -- that a kid could be out of school for four to six months and have no programming provided for them," she said, adding the province will give boards more cash to run such programs for struggling students.
"Suspending or expelling as a way of restoring a kid to academic success is not a successful path."
The current act promotes zero-tolerance for any violence and has been criticized for suspending students rather than giving them the help they need.
or from the Marxist-leninist daily
Opposition to Safe School Act Escalates
Around 60 people comprising youth, students, parents, community groups, teachers, and lawyers met on February 22, 2007 at the York Gate Mall in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood in northwest Toronto, to launch a campaign to end 'zero tolerance' and exclusion in schools. The campaign was launched on the very same day that the state-funded annual conference of the Canadian Safe Schools Network was taking place to enhance the "effectiveness" of the Safe Schools Act.
Parents, youth and teachers shared their experiences about the adverse effects the Safe Schools Act has had on the youth in their communities. The common theme was that the Code of Conduct being implemented by school boards and local schools is irrational and oppressive. Parents, teachers and a lawyer expressed how students are being suspended for challenging authority by being defiant against appalling and humiliating rules in the school. Furthermore, everyone expressed concern about the increasing role of security guards and police in the schools and there was consensus among the participants that the presence of these uniformed forces negated an academic environment, created a climate of fear and was detrimental to the education of the children and youth, and it has no place in educational institutions.
It was also brought out that parents who advocate on behalf of their children and insist on their rights and the rights of their children face being banned from schools property. This has been the experience of not a few parents, especially from national minority backgrounds.
Individuals then shared their stories. One parent said that her son who is in grade 4 was suspended by the principal for throwing a snowball and added how youth as young as 12 are being suspended. Another member of the community said that his 14-year-old son was suspended for associating with individuals who had allegedly committed a crime. A lawyer present added how routine it has become for principals who do not even understand the law and what constitutes an assault bring in the police at the slightest violation of the Code instead of trying to solve the problem through reason and understanding. This again demonstrates how administrators and teachers have been empowered by the state to be an extension of the police in the schools. They are under seige to such an extent that they seek law and order solutions to put things right, even though matters deteriorate.
A lawyer from the African Canadian Legal Clinic who has represented suspended and expelled youth also spoke and informed the community that at a mediation meeting at the Human Rights Commission, he had encountered a school principal who said that in order to punish a youth, he would deny the student an education.
A parent then spoke and told the audience that her grade one son was suspended, and that his Ontario School Record in which the suspension was recorded, followed him throughout his school years and was used as a means to label and abuse him as a troublemaker. Another parent said that a female student was strip-searched by a male police officer, and that the police officer asked this girl "Do you have a bomb in your jacket?"
Many parents, activists, teachers and lawyers all agreed that the Safe Schools Act is oppressive and that it is not working. All expressed a need to act and as one participant said, before acting there must be investigation, organization and information.
One participant informed the gathering that the Safe Schools Action Team Report, which was issued in 2006, is posted on the Ontario Ministry of Education website. This report was written by the Safe Schools Action Team, a team of four individuals appointed by the McGuinty Liberals in response to the amount of opposition the Safe Schools Act had received over the years from activists, teachers, and parents. It proposes ways in which the efficiency and effectiveness of the Safe Schools Act can be enhanced when what is required is to scrap it, the person said.
The organizers of the meeting proposed to work to repeal of the Safe Schools Act and demand more investments to educational programs so that the most marginalized and vulnerable students will get the supports that they need to enjoy their basic right to education and a bright future.
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Why the Safe Schools Act Must Be Repealed
- Frank Chilelli* -
It is a matter of principle to oppose the disinformation that it is the youth and students who are violent. The increase of violence in society is the result of the anti-social offensive launched in the mid-1980s. At that time Canada embarked on the neo-liberal path. Step by step the anti-social offensive was launched by the reactionary bourgeoisie to solve the crisis of the social welfare state which was no longer providing the rich with the profits they deemed fit. Social programs were dismantled so as to free up the money invested in social programs and divert it to pay the rich in the form of investments in the stock markets and payments of the onerous interest on the debt. In Ontario by the early 1990s the Bob Rae NDP government (1990-1995) was fully engaged in facilitating this anti-people agenda. It was elaborated fully by the Harris Conservatives (1996-2002) and taken further by the present McGuinty Liberals. Amongst other things, the Rae NDP government adopted the method of disinformation whereby pretexts were used to justify the subsequent measures. In this way it used a few isolated incidents involving violence in schools to create hysteria in the mass media about "youth violence" in the schools and in the community. It was also during this time that the so-called Yonge Street Riot took place in May 1992 when hundreds of black youth and other youth marched in downtown Toronto demanding justice and respect for their rights and increased funding for social programs that were being cut. They were provoked by the police and accused of causing a "riot." The Rae government then called on Stephen Lewis to investigate the matter. His report paid lip service to the problems facing the youth, blamed the youth for the violence and whitewashed the anti-social crimes of the Rae government.
Using these events as a pretext, the Rae government introduced and implemented the Violence Free Schools Act in 1994. This Act was also in response to a commission that was undertaken by the previous Peterson Liberal government which had tabled the Safe Schools Report that made recommendations on how to deal with violent incidents in schools. In fact in late 1993, it was the Scarborough Board of Education that was the first in the Greater Toronto Area to initiate and implement a Safe Schools Policy on Violence and Weapons.
During the 1999 provincial election in Ontario, as part of their "law and order" platform the Mike Harris Conservatives promised to implement a "zero tolerance" policy in order to deal with the "violence and bad behaviour" in schools. In 2000, when the Conservatives were in power, Education Minister Janet Ecker introduced Bill 81 which became known as the Safe Schools Act. It amended the Education Act, and came into effect at the beginning of the 2001 school year.
The main difference between the Violence Free Schools Act and the Safe Schools Act is that with the latter, school boards across Ontario were mandated to abide by a set of provincial codes of conduct based on a standard of behaviour for all students and consequences for serious incidents in schools. The Safe Schools Act codified in law a more repressive and punitive system against those students who were deemed in violation of this Code of Conduct. For example, expulsion is now compulsory for the possession of weapons, for damaging school property, swearing at or threatening a teacher and so on. Why the youth are doing such things is not even considered, let alone investing in solutions which provide a favourable outcome to the youth, their families and society. For the first time, classroom teachers were empowered to suspend a student for one day for violating the Code, thereby in fact compounding the problems, in many cases driving them underground and spawning the potential for even greater dangers when avenues of forward looking resistance escape the youth.
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