More staff needed to reduce violence in schools: Teachers’ union president

Recent altercations in Halifax area high schools have some parents concerned about the violence in the classroom.

Last month Halifax Regional Police were called to Halifax West High School where a male youth was stabbed during a brawl involving around 50 young people.

The victim was taken to hospital with what are believed to be non-life threatening injuries.

The president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union says reductions in staff may be part of the problem — adding more teachers could lead to fewer incidents.

“There are concerns that students aren't adequately supervised because of the number of staff,” Ryan Lutes told CityNews Halifax. 

“If you remember two years ago there were some teacher cuts in Halifax and that really decreased the number of adults in the building, both the help kids learn and to keep kids safe.”

In fact, Lutes has heard some students are afraid to use the bathrooms at school.

“Because they don't think that they're washrooms are safe, or they're vandalized, so they actually go off-site to use the washroom.”

When it comes to keeping parents up to date on these incidents, he did say public information needs to be balanced with the privacy of students.

“At the end of they day these are kids … I don't have the perfect solution on that, I think our administrators are trying to balance that,” he explained. “But what I do hope is that they are looking at the data because the data tells us something.”

“It tells us if there are schools that are struggling, and if there are schools that are struggling, then we need to be prepared to support those schools with extra staffing or whatever they need.”

He added overall teachers just want a safe space where students can learn, and if that's not happening, that needs to be addressed.