Frustrated principals want legislated powers to protect teachers

Legislation to remove aggressive parents from school grounds and mental health nurses for parent coaching. Inside the push to protect teachers from ‘volatile’ parents.

Principals should also have the power to exclude parents permanently “if inappropriate behaviours are repeated”.

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Principals across Australia need legislated powers to remove volatile parents from school grounds amid an increase in incidents of occupational violence against teachers, the heads of the nation’s primary and secondary principals associations warn.

There are also calls to trial mental health nurses in primary schools to coach and inform parents about children’s wellbeing.

The nurses would also “support staff following a traumatic event such as harassment or threat from a parent, support parents to have concerns addressed in respectful ways and support … student medication needs”, Australian Primary Principals Association president Angela Falkenberg said.

The Australian recently revealed a quarter of teachers felt unsafe at work in large part because of physically violent students and volatile parents, and most of them were considering leaving the profession in what could further exacerbate a nationwide teacher shortage.

The suggested legislation, similar to that enacted in Victoria in 2021, would enable principals to direct parents or carers who engage in harmful, threatening or abusive behaviour away from school sites for various periods of time.

Principals should also have the power to exclude parents permanently “if inappropriate behaviours are repeated”.

“We want these processes to be as efficient for the leader as possible so that their time remains focused on teaching and learning and not ‘inappropriate adult behaviour management’,” Ms Falkenberg said.

Australian Primary Principals Association president Angela Falkenberg.

She said school leaders wanted to see “unambiguous messages across the nation about the importance of respectful relationships on school sites”.

“These complex adults are small in number, but their impact is large, and the majority of other parents don’t want to see or be the recipient of these behaviours either,” Ms Falkenberg said.

She warned that abuse and threats by a parent towards a teacher or principal affected children too.

“When their teacher or principal is abused or harmed (as these incidents are often in children’s sight and hearing) children are alarmed (or) frightened and their learning is impacted. Parents want their children to be safe at school, and dysregulated and abusive adults create an unsafe environment for all,” she said.

Teachers who were on the receiving end of “threatening behaviour” need time to regulate following an incident and in the case of teachers, Ms Falkenberg said, this could mean they “need to be away from the classroom for an hour or so (or even longer); again, learning is impacted”.

Australian Secondary Principals' Association president Andy Mison.

Australian Secondary Principals Association president Andy Mison said teacher training needed to be updated so graduates were better equipped to manage complex behaviours, as well as more investment in school psychologists, social workers and occupational therapists.

Referring to the Victorian legislation, Mr Mison said: “It’s a very practical thing that governments around Australia could do.

“State and territory governments need harmonised legislation to empower principals to issue those kinds of community safety orders. I certainly think we need to rally around our schools, particularly our principals, and authorise them with the tools to protect the safety of themselves and staff.”

Mr Mison said there were more expectations on schools than ever, including parents demanding disproportionate face-to-face time with teachers, increasing rates of students with disabilities, more social problems such as mobile phones, and an increasing expectation for schools to provide a highly personalised learning program for each student.

“(This can) create problems because public schools haven’t been resourced to respond to these expectations,” he said.

Mr Mison said there were also added pressures on parents such as cost of living, longer working hours, and less investment in public services outside schools to support families.