Violent students and parents have doubled injury payouts to teachers
Stories of violent students and parents have prompted a soft-touch response from the Queensland government.
Insurance payouts to teachers injured by violent students or parents have doubled in six years, triggering a taxpayer-funded advertising campaign.
WorkCover paid out a record $81.6m in claims to injured teachers and other school staff in Queensland in 2022/23, with another $72 million of payouts in the first nine months of 2023/24.
Queensland Education Minister Di Farmer on Monday announced a “no excuse for school abuse’’ advertising campaign on social media, YouTube and Google.
“If the average person knew what teachers put up with every single day in terms of occupational violence, they would fall off their chair,’’ she said.
“Some of the stories that you hear are shocking.
“This new campaign is about drawing a line in the sand and making it clear that there is never an excuse for this type of aggressive behaviour, either in person or online, and it won’t be tolerated.’’
Ms Farmer did not announce any new punitive consequences for students or parents who abuse staff.
The state government’s Occupational Violence and Aggression (OVA) initiative will also include “psychological first aid training’’ for school staff, as well as “making reporting easier’’.
Specialised “wellbeing support’’ will be delivered to affected staff, and the state Education Department will work with universities to “train preservice teachers in classroom behaviour management and effective behaviour interventions’’.
The Queensland Teachers’ Union (QTU) launched its own social media campaign on Wednesday, based on anonymised quotes from teachers harmed at work.
“A child spat on my face in my classroom. I still have to teach them every day,’’ said one teacher named Leah.
Another teacher spoke of “having to remain calm while a student destroys your personal belongings at the back of the room’’.
A 40-year-old female teacher said she had to sit down at a parent-teacher interview with a student’s father who had “sent me a threatening email and called me a ‘f***ing b***h’ to my face.’’
QTU president Cresta Richardson said the union’s 48,000 members “are fed up and demanding action’’.
“Schools truly are unique workplaces,’’ she said.
“Teachers can be assaulted and abused but have to continue working with the perpetrator moments later, often for years to come without any recourse or justice.
“No other worker or workplace endures this.’’
Ms Richardson said that teachers, unlike paramedics, police or nurses, “have always been expected to be more accepting, simply because of the ages and potentially complex home lives of perpetrators’’.
“Anyone who has to endure abuse and then continue working like nothing happened is suffering two-fold,’’ she said.
“Our teachers and school leaders are targeted and attacked by parents and caregivers in person, on the phone and in social media.’’
Ms Richardson said well-behaved students are suffering as a result of disruptive classmates.
“Learning can’t happen when classroom tension is heightened and students are frightened,’’ she said.
“Classrooms need to be calm places of respect.’’
Queensland Opposition education spokesman Dr Christian Rowan said it was no wonder that teachers are “frustrated and leaving in droves’’.
He said WorkCover claims for teachers and other school staff had soared 135 per cent under the Palaszczuk-Miles Labor government.
“There must be a zero-tolerance approach to violence in our schools,’’ he said.
“Queensland teachers have never been less safe in our schools.’’
Ahead of next month’s state election, Dr Rowan said an LNP government will “boost student-to-teacher ratios and crack down on inexcusable violence’’.
Dr Rowan is refusing to say if an incoming LNP government will sign the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement (BFSA) deal for extra federal funding, in return for teaching reforms to improve school attendance and student performance.
The Miles Government is refusing to sign the deal unless the Commonwealth doubles its funding offer.
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