I'LL RAM YOUR HEAD INTO CONCRETE

Knife pulled on principal as raging parents threaten to bash staff in front of children

THUG parents are pulling knives on principals and in one instance threatened to ram their “head into concrete”. Principals and teachers say the abuse is occurring nearly every day and taking place in front of students. “I’ve had some tell me that they used to be in a bikie gang and can make life difficult,” one principal said. Both the state and federal governments say they treat the safety of principals seriously, but when asked what they were doing to ensure that safety they urged classroom leaders to follow “procedure”.

THUG parents are pulling knives on Gold Coast principals and in one instance threatened to ram their “head into concrete”.

Principals and teachers have told the Bulletin the abuse is occurring nearly every day and taking place in front of students as raging parents try to defend their child’s bad behaviour.

“I was told that I’d have my head driven into the concrete,” a Gold Coast secondary school principal said. “That was said to me in my office, in front of the person’s child.

“There was also a principal in the (city’s) north who had a knife pulled on him while in a meeting with a family about bullying.”

Principals and teachers said social media was magnifying the problem as the abuse did not stop when the school bell went at 3pm.

“I’ve had a social media page set up in my honour, people writing that I’m an arsehole and should be sacked,” a principal said.

“The primary school principal up the road, people were writing about her marriage (and) said her husband probably cried himself to sleep because she was such a bitch.

“It’s awful stuff. The level of harassment teachers and principals get from parents online and in person is outrageous.”

Another principal said: “People have tried to physically intimidate me, they storm into the office demanding to see the principal.

“I’ve had some tell me that they used to be in a bikie gang and can make life difficult.

“And it’s definitely increasing. I know of five fellow principals that have been abused in the past 12 months. This really needs to be addressed.

“I hope it doesn’t get to the point where we need guards or CCTV, but I do know in some schools they have school-based police officers.”

In 2016, Tamborine Mountain State High School principal Tracey Brose sued eight parents for damages of $150,000 each. She alleged she was subjected to “hatred, ridicule and contempt” in a bitter school community feud.

Ms Brose accused parents of defaming her on internet sites, with one allegedly calling her “evil, nasty and horrible”. The case is still before the courts.

An Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey by the Australian Catholic University (ACU) released this year shows four in 10 principals are threatened with violence while one in three has been physically attacked.

Numbers in Queensland have skyrocketed more than 20 per cent since 2011.

Children’s behaviour is getting worse too.

The Bulletin this month reported Gold Coast state school students were missing more than 600 days of school every week due to suspension or expulsion.

It was up nearly 50 per cent on 2014 figures.

Queensland Teachers Union president Kevin Bates said it was difficult to fully grasp the scale of abuse because many incidents were not reported.

“The data we have is limited,” he said. “In the ACT they ran a campaign to record any incidents that occurred and the data that was developed over a month was shocking. It was so long and involved.

“We’re using that ACT model and a policy developed in WA to approach and deal with violence in schools, from parents and students.

“Sometimes it’s also the fact that teachers, being in a caring profession, often discount student behaviour – ‘they’re the child, I’m the adult, so I’ll just absorb that’ – instead of making formal reports.”

Mr Bates said the best solution was prevention.

“It’s unacceptable anywhere, that’s the line in the sand. Just because it’s in a school context doesn’t mean that any physical assault or interferrence with someone doing their job won’t result in prosecution or jail terms.

“Schools must keep and maintain relationships to ensure the best interests of students can be dealt with, but if people step over the line, then action needs to be taken.”

Health and Wellbeing report author and ACU associate professor Philip Riley said abusive parents were often worried about their children and “reacting to their own stress”.

“There’s also a sense of ‘if anything goes wrong, it must be the school’s fault’,” he said.

“The stories like the ones on the Gold Coast are what I’m hearing from all around the country. In the space of seven years doing the research, the incidents have gone from seven times the rate of the population to nine times. That’s really scary. Not just that it’s so high, but how quickly it’s escalated.

“We’re really in trouble as a society and what’s happening in schools is just another manifestation. We have to have co-ordinated responses to these situations and need a public education campaign to say people don’t have the right to threaten others just because they are feeling angry.”