TORONTO - It could soon become mandatory for teachers and school staff to report serious incidents like assaults to principals if a proposed government bill comes to pass in the spring.
Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said Thursday she will introduce the proposed legislation in the next session of the legislature to toughen reporting standards and make curriculum changes to the way students are taught about gender-based violence, sexuality, homophobia and sexually transmitted diseases.
"We can't assume that people have the same level of comfort or knowledge about these issues," Wynne said.
"We live in a world where these issues need to be dealt with, and we are trying to create a more supportive and safer environment for kids in a world that still hasn't dealt with these issues."
The move comes on the last day of the legislature's fall session and is in response to a government-commissioned report that calls for action to prevent violence and harassment among students.
While schools already have guidelines about reporting such incidents, Thursday's report by the Safe Schools Action Team found those regulations aren't always followed.
"What we are suggesting is that it be clarified that principals need to follow those regulations and guidelines when it comes to reporting," said Liz Sandals, who headed the report.
"However, you're always going to have a certain amount of discretion and interpreting."
Earlier this year lawyer Julian Falconer, who led a school safety panel convened after 15-year-old Jordan Manners was fatally shot in his Toronto school in May 2007, released a report that uncovered an alarming number of unreported incidents of violence and sexual harassment at Toronto schools.
That report concluded many of the more than 250,000 students at Toronto public schools contend daily with a "culture of fear" that pervades many of the city's secondary-school institutions.
Last month, a 17-year-old was charged in the stabbing of a 16-year-old student at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute -- the same school where Manners was shot.
Progressive Conservative Lisa MacLeod introduced a private member's bill last month to protect young people, calling for Wynne to "establish a policy requiring principals, teachers and all other board employees who become aware of an incident of violence or abuse committed against a pupil on school premises to report the incident" to the child's parents, the school's board, the police and, if applicable, the Children's Aid Society.
NDP education critic Rosario Marchese said the report raised some valid points, but he questioned how long the planned curriculum changes would take to enact.
"We should be doing a lot more to talk about hiring youth workers, who are the ones that people go to when there are problems," he said.
The government will also look at a recommendation to teach sexual education earlier because kids are becoming sexually active at a younger age.
"If we're going to be effective in prevention then we have to talk about what it is we envision as a healthy relationship, and kids have to understand that," Wynne said.
"We're talking about helping kids to understand the things they need to understand in order to keep themselves safe."
