Costly bill for attacks on Victorian teachers

TWO students made a $500 bet to slap a teacher’s aide in the face in one of 63 cases of assault and harassment of educators last year that cost Victorian taxpayers $1.7 million.

TWO students made a $500 bet to slap a teacher’s aide in the face in one of 63 cases of assault and harassment of educators last year that cost Victorian taxpayers $1.7 million.

Weapons including a tomahawk, a meat cleaver, scissors, a cricket bat, a hockey stick and a rubbish bin were used by students to threaten and assault Department of Education staff, who were awarded more than $1.7 million of taxpayer funds in compensation.

According to details of a WorkSafe Victoria case obtained by the Herald Sun under Freedom of Information, a teacher’s aide claimed for facial injuries after being hit by a child who “made a $500 bet with another student to hit me twice with a slap to the face”.

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The student was suspended. The teacher’s aide was awarded $398 in damages.

Despite the official records, the department said yesterday the bet was for $50, not $500.

Other staff received compensation awards over:

A PSYCHIATRIC disorder suffered by a staffer who disarmed a student with a meat cleaver ($50,136);

SCISSORS being thrown at a staffer after one pupil tried to stab another ($21,401);

POST-traumatic stress disorder suffered by a teacher threatened by a student with a cricket bat and then locked in a classroom ($47,820);

“ANTI-Semitic abuse by pupils (and a) lack of support by (the) school” ($103,474);

AN obscene threat of violence by a student ($24,402); and

A SHOULDER injury suffered in an assault in which a pupil threw a rubbish bin ($108,635).

But students weren’t alone in misbehaving. In seven cases, parents cost the taxpayer a total of more than $200,000.

One $34,819 claim involved a parent and child teaming up and threatening a staff member with a tomahawk and a hockey stick.

Another claim of $31,939 involved a parent verbally abusing and spitting in the face of a staff member.

The cases were among 889 WorkSafe claims by Department of Education staff for injuries in the workplace in 2017, which totalled $11.4 million.

One in three were claims for falls, slips and trips.

But mental stress cost the most, at $4.7 million.

The Australian Education Union’s Victorian branch deputy secretary, Justin Mullaly, said the cases went “to the heart of some of the challenges our members face”.

“Sometimes students and parents behave in a way that is not acceptable,” he said.

Mr Mullaly said while the department was doing more to support teaching staff, “there is always more that can be done to support schools”.

The total number of claims by DET staff has remained stable over five years, at almost 900 per year, but fewer claims are being rejected.

Last year, 711 compensation claims were accepted, up by 23 per cent on 2013, when 578 were accepted.

Other claims accepted last year included for: a “sore throat from having to stop and cough midway through sentences” ($164); a back injury from “transferring large amount(s) of papers from desk to recycle bin” ($3300); passing out after watching a “vet do surgery on (a) cat” ($521); and voice overuse leading to “discomfort (and) changes in my voice, pain when swollowing (sic)” ($10,598).

A departmental spokesman said: “There is no place for aggressive, threatening or racist behaviour in our schools.

“In a government school system of more than 600,000 students and 1500 schools, ­violence is rare. There was a little over one report of assault or aggressive behaviour per school last year.

“Our schools (have) the support they need to create a safe environment for students and teachers and (there are) initiatives to stamp out bullying and support students.”

A new Principal Health and Wellbeing Strategy also helped cut stress experienced by principals and supported them on the rare occasions they dealt with violent students, he said.

“Extensive support is available for teachers experiencing stress, including 150 extra regional support staff and access to a free counselling service.

“The department takes its commitment to staff welfare seriously; however, we are not the decision maker in relation to WorkSafe’s decision to pay compensation claims,” the spokesman said.

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