Student violence surge pushes Canadian teachers to breaking point
Teachers report rising classroom violence amid provincial budget cuts and staff shortages affecting support systems.
What to know
- Student violence in Canadian schools is rising, straining teachers already dealing with large class sizes and insufficient support staff.
- Provincial budget cuts to education and mental health services are cited as root causes, limiting resources for students with behavioral and mental health needs.
- Education assistants and specialized staff positions are being cut, forcing regular classroom teachers to manage complex behavioral issues without adequate support.
- The age of criminal responsibility (12 in Canada) and challenges in holding special-needs students accountable complicate school discipline responses.
The dispute Whether administrative salary bloat is a significant factor in education budget problems: commenters argue the real issue is insufficient total funding, not misallocation within existing budgets. · positions read across 11 posts and comments
Provincial budget cuts and staff shortages are the primary drivers of rising school violence and teacher burnout.
-
“It's the budget cuts the province levels that got us to this point.”
turudd · Reddit
The system fails all stakeholders—students with special needs, mainstream students, teachers, and support staff—due to structural underfunding.
-
“It's a bad situation for everyone: the special needs kids, the other kids, the teachers and staff. No one benefits here.”
BethSaysHayNow · Reddit ↗
Class size increases and education assistant cuts are being used to mask budget shortfalls rather than addressing the real problem.
-
“5 normal classes can be reduced to 4 if you allow 35+ kids per class…Then EA positions are the first to be cut.”
Chucklestheece · Reddit ↗
“many of these kids that commit violence come from broken or unstable homes and they take the anger from home to school. Also, with many provinces defunding education and mental health service, that makes normal classroom teachers have to carry extra weight”
No_Mention8589, Reddit commenter · Reddit
Canadian teachers Educators facing classroom violenceCanadian provincial governments Education funding authorities
The record 1 articles and posts · last 26 days
What people are saying 11 voices from 1 site · verbatim
- How are schools legally and practically responding to violent incidents when the age of criminal responsibility is 12 and special-needs students are difficult to hold accountable?
- What outcomes have provinces seen from alternative approaches like Saskatchewan's pilot program with capped class sizes and dedicated support staff?
- Sep 1
-
It’s a bad situation for everyone: the special needs kids, the other kids, the teachers and staff. No one benefits here.
-
Academics are too worried about getting and keeping a stable job to devote time/energy to activism. Pretty much like every other worker.
-
And now that a good amount of us have switched careers how is that attitude going? 😂
-
It is the same ideological root in my opinion. It doesn’t make it evil, and we should consider elements of it in the choices we make but the pendulum has simply swung too far in the school system. We’re letting down our overall student and teacher population
-
It’s the budget cuts the province levels that got us to this point. Idiots will say “well there is bloat with administrative salaries. FiRE thEm. Hurr durr” I don’t know about Ontario but Alberta, admin salaries are about 5% of the total budget…. It ain’t salaries of management that is the problem.
-
Ha! You’re out to lunch if you think admin is even taking the call. The secretary takes the call and says “they are in a meeting, I’ll leave them a message” and maybe a few days later you get an email or a brief phone call
-
5 normal classes can be reduced to 4 if you allow 35+ kids per class, which is the norm these days in bigger centres. In rural areas, classes are split to achieve the 35 kids per class. Then EA positions are the first to be cut. So instead of 50 teachers across 50 classrooms with support for the conplex classrooms, the norm is becoming 45 teachers…
-
So don't acknowledge that you twist my entire comment to suit your crazy? Ok gotcha. Please reach out for some help in your community if it's available. Jesus Christ...
-
It’s also worth keeping in mind that the age of criminal responsibility is 12, so you cannot charge or try a defendant younger than that as they are considered too young to be held criminally responsible. Especially if the kid is special needs it may be hard to hold them criminally liable even if they are older than 12.
-
And then we end up dedicating one or two FULL TIME education assistants to these kids.
-
Although this does not justify it, many of these kids that commit violence come from broken or unstable homes and they take the anger from home to school. Also, with many provinces defunding education and mental health service, that makes normal classroom teachers have to carry extra weight with them also tending to kids who have mental and…