Schools failing minorities, parents say
Families claim their children punished for reacting, while instigators get away
Erik Tran says his 16-year-old daughter with Asian features was bullied by the white girls at her private West Island school, Collège Charlemagne, but when she spoke back to her aggressors, it was she who was suddenly expelled after 12 years at the school.
The school never informed him of prior incidents that would have helped him tackle the problem, Tran said. When he complained to Quebec’s education ministry, he noted the school did not take appropriate measures or communicate well with the parents.
The ministry said the decision was in the hands of the school.
Stanley Charles said his 18-yearold black son was accused of selling drugs because a vice-principal was suspicious about the way he shook hands with another black student at his Terrebonne school. When his son deemed a body search by the school’s assistant director was excessive and humiliating, and refused to complete it, he was expelled on the spot, one month before final exams.
Asha said her eight-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter were told they smelled bad and “were black like all the other Africans” because they did not wash. Her son suffered repeated physical attacks by other students at their elementary school.
When he retaliated, he was punished by school officials. An administrator told him he would be in prison by 14. Asha said she went to the school several times a month asking them to intervene, to no avail. She finally pulled him out. He is now being homeschooled.
More parents from visible minorities have been coming forward this year with similar stories of their children being bullied and mistreated and the school failing to address the situation, said Fo Niemi, director of the Montrealbased Center for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR).
More than 20 families have approached the organization. Black parents, in many cases, have reported an increase in the use of the N-word used against their children.
There is no clear reason for the rise, Niemi said, although he wondered whether increased racialization expressed by the Donald Trump administration in the United States has played a role.
“Sometimes these children of colour react to the bullying, and when they react, they are punished,” Niemi said. “The bullied becomes accused and charged as the bully.”
Under Quebec’s Public Instruction Act, parents and students are supposed to be able to argue their sides before the council of commissioners, Niemi said. If they can’t, a complaint to the education ministry is supposed to ensure they are.
In each of the cases noted above, presented by the families to journalists at CRARR offices Thursday, the parents approached the schools, school boards and finally Quebec’s Ministry of Education, but say they either got no response, or were rebuffed.
Niemi noted that, in 2012, the National Assembly passed Bill 56, an Act to prevent and stop bullying and violence in schools.
“There’s a growing sense the law is not being applied,” Niemi said.
Charles, the father of the 18-yearold who refused to submit to the full search (his son said he emptied all his pockets and bags, but balked when asked to take off his jacket and start rolling up his pants), said he experienced racial taunts as a young student in Quebec. Back then, school administrators and teachers were quick to deal with the issues and speak to the perpetrators, and their parents, if necessary.
Now, he said, there is a sense administrators are hiding behind legislation instead of confronting issues quickly.
“I am a Quebecer,” Charles said. “I just want my son to be treated fairly and in a just manner, like every other Quebecer.”
CRARR is asking that the ministry ensure the anti-bullying legislation is being applied.
“We see a pattern of schools and school boards not applying the law on bullying properly, not protecting children, not informing the parents, and the schools and school boards turning around and making children of colour into problem-makers and taking all kinds of sanctions against them,” Niemi said.
The responsibility for support and management in regard to incidents of violence or bullying falls to the schools and school boards, outlined in the laws on public and private education, Bryan St-Louis, director of communications for the education ministry, said in an email.
Each school has an obligation to create an action plan to deal with bullying and violence, updated each year, and report any incidents to the school board.
Those boards have a responsibility to ensure children are educated in a safe environment, he said.