Why aggressive parents are being banned from Victorian public school grounds

Victorian public school principals have been forced to ban a number of parents from primary and secondary schools in the past year following several shocking violent incidents.

Ten parents have been banned from Victorian schools for aggressive behaviour after new laws were introduced last July.

Principals have been forced to step in and ban aggressive parents from school grounds amid several shocking incidents of violence or intimidating behaviour.

The Herald Sun can reveal 10 Community Safety Orders were issued in government schools in nine separate incidents between July 2022 to June this year by principals in response to incidents that posed considerable safety risks to members in the school community.

The orders, which are issued in primary and secondary government schools, came into effect in July last year.

They are designed to cover behaviour that is dangerous and abusive but doesn’t meet the threshold for an intervention order.

They can also apply to inappropriate, harmful communication through emails, phone calls, text messages, social media and other channels.

It comes as principals and teachers in government schools have told the Herald Sun they had been subjected to “threatening” and “confronting” behaviour from parents.

Malcolm Elliott, a former principal and president of the Australian Primary Principals Association says verbal abuse and threatening behaviour has resulted in the bans.

A government primary school principal, who teaches in Melbourne’s southeast, said he and staff members had been “threatened” by aggressive parents.

“I had a parent in my office who was not happy with how the conversation was going and stood over my desk and threatened me while clenching their fists at me,” he said.

“The parent then got up and slammed the door so hard that a picture frame in my office fell from the wall.

“It was very confronting.

“Staff members of mine, including office staff, have also been threatened via email and phone.

“I think the orders are necessary and it’s good that principals have the power to use them.”

A teacher, who works at a regional government secondary school, said he had also received threatening phone calls from parents.

“A mother phoned me after her daughter was suspended and said she was ‘going to get me’ after school,” he said.

“She was clearly in an agitated state, but it did make me feel scared.”

Australian Primary Principals Association immediate past president Malcolm Elliott said: “One level of the toll is a sense of regret and sadness that comes with taking out a Community Safety Order.”

“The issues remain the same, there’s verbal abuse, threatening behaviour and that’s the kind of behaviour that’s most common and it’s repeated,” Mr Elliott said.

“The office personnel are often the frontline of this kind of abusive behaviour, they’re the ones who may get the emails or have a person arriving who is highly agitated and already abusive.”

Andrew Dalgleish, president of the Victorian Principals’ Association covering primary schools, said: “We see that anybody, in any job and in any walk of life that if they are threatened it can be quite distressing.”

A Department of Education spokesman said incidents of violence or intimidating behaviour from parents, while “very rare” in Victoria’s more than 1550 government schools, were never acceptable and were immediately referred to the police when appropriate.

“To ensure the safety of our principals and teachers we have recently introduced new measures, including the School Community Safety Orders,” the spokesman said.

The Department’s Respectful Behaviours in the School Community Policy was initially launched to schools in mid Term 4, 2021 and applies to all Victorian government schools.