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3| W aterloo C hronicle | T hursday,F ebruary 1,2018 w aterloochronicle.ca YOUR city YOUR news also available online CITY NEWS Visit waterloochronicle.ca for more coverage She could register herdaughter for full-day kin-dergarten in September,but Kimiko Shibata, an elementary teacher with the Wa- terloo Region District School Board herself, has decided against the option. "I don't feel safe enrolling her," Shibata said. "I know for myself I've been kicked, hit, punched, spit on; scissors have been held to my throat. I've had chairs thrown at me. "It's significant, and this hasn't just happened once - it's been mul- tiple situations." Shibata is one of several teach- ers who formed a delegation that came before board trustees on Monday evening to highlight a growing number of complaints pertaining to violence and ag- gression against teachers in local elementary schools. According to the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario, an independent survey conduct- ed last year revealed 70 per cent of its members have personally ex- perienced or witnessed work- place violence in schools. Members reported that the number and severity of incidents is increasing, and front-line sup- ports are lacking. "We're working with kids who have some extremely adverse childhood experiences that they are coping with - a whole lot of trauma, a whole lot of mental health issues that are yet to be di- agnosed," Shibata said. "We often don't find out about mental health diagnoses until well after there's been a number of classroom evacuations and po- lice have been called in." According to Jeff Pelich, vice president of the ETFO's Waterloo Region local, the biggest frustra- tion is the lack of paired, profes- sional supports. Some schools with up to 600 students have nu- merous kids on safety plans, but only two to three educational as- sistants, he said. "The days where the EA would work with a child with a learning disability are pretty much gone, because EAs are working with ag- gressive students when they're there," he said. Much of the violence reported takes place in full-day Kindergar- ten classrooms, Pelich noted, as many new students come without experience in a daycare setting and haven't had their needs as- sessed by professionals. "That's where we're seeing the biggest struggle," he said. Even though there's a teacher and dedicated early childhood ed- ucator present in full-day kinder- garten classes, the free-flowing program can create a "perfect storm" for violence to occur, Pel- ich added. "It's cheaper to have an FDK (full-day kindergarten) program with 30 children and a variety of needs and two adults rather than the original plan of 20 students in a class," according to Shibata. She said the province's minis- try of education is good at manip- ulating numbers and packaging them in a different way to say the classroom environment for stu- dents is beneficial. "The province has essentially shut down congregated classes and is trying to integrate students into the mainstream and say they're fully supported, but what they really mean by fully support- ed is one EA shared through three classes. That's not the one-to-one they were getting. "So inclusion without actual safety is not safe for our kids." Pelich said he's also experi- enced violence in the classroom firsthand and that even commu- nity-based mental health re- sources have dwindled in recent years. "So when you have a child who's in extreme crisis who's sui- cidal, or melting down or whatev- er it is, they're on wait lists for a year and a half to two years before they can get the supports they need," he said. Educational assistants, child and youth workers, social work- ers and child psychologists are in high demand, both in schools and the in broader public realm, Pel- ich said. "Without those things we just aren't able to get to the learning that should happen in the class- room." A special-education teacher with the Waterloo Region school board, Josh Dickson travels from school to school working with stu- dents facing challenges. He said resources provided by the board have actually increased in recent years, but all of the students he supports are in regular class- rooms. "Trying to get them into a pedi- atrician can take months; trying to get them into a psychiatrist can take equally as long," he said. "In the meantime we're doing the best we can when we don't have any di- agnostic information." During his first three years in the role, Dickson said he never had to wear the personal protec- tive gear that's available to teach- ers. "Then, in the last three years, I've had that every year," he said. Waterloo Region District School Board trustee Mike Ram- say called Monday's delegation by ETFO members a "wake-up call." Trustees passed two main mo- tions - one to advocate through the Ontario Provincial School Board Association for better sup- ports, and another to have staff prepare quarterly reports on inci- dents of student aggression. The board heard the teachers' concerns loud and clear, said board spokesperson Nick Man- ning. While Manning conceded re- ports of violence in schools have increased, three-quarters of all incidents still result in no injury and 23 per cent require first-aid in the classroom. About one per cent result in lost time or health-care needs. "But right now it's just a lot of putting out fires," Shibata said. "A lot of it's dealing with behaviours instead of actually doing that in- quiry-based learning and the wonderful, lovely things that should be happening with the average three-and-a-half- to four- year-old." VViioolleennccee oonn tthhee rriissee,, tteeaacchheerrss" uunniioonn ssaayyss BILL JACKSON bjackson@kitchenerpost.ca Reports of violence and aggression are increasing in local schools, according to the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario. Metro Creative