Zero tolerance leaving a hole
Mental health issues unexamined after expulsions
Thu, March 3, 2005
By NELLY ELAYOUBI, Ottawa Sun
A hard-line approach to school safety leaves the most vulnerable of children and youth susceptible to further isolation, rejection and more antisocial behaviour. A community forum hosted by the Roberts Smart Centre tonight will look at the province's Safe Schools Act and how zero tolerance makes "zero sense."
"You need to go and look beyond the behaviour," says Susan Hess, president of Parents for Children's Mental Health.
Hess knows this first-hand. Her daughter Leah, now 24, battled mental illness as a child. Leah took knives to school and had no idea why. At 10, she spoke of voices she heard in her head, telling her to kill herself and her mother.
"My daughter was constantly asked to leave school," Hess says. "If she was in school today, she would have been expelled by Grade 2."
The act, introduced by former Tory Education Minister Janet Ecker, came into effect in 2001. It allows schools to consider mitigating factors but Hess wonders if they are.
NEED DISCIPLINE
"I'm not condoning bringing guns to school, I'm not condoning bringing illegal things, I'm not condoning that we let them run free," Hess says. "But discipline is meaning you create a situation where the child learns and can improve whatever that behaviour was, instead of expelling them."
Dr. Xavier Plaus, a child psychiatrist and executive director of the Roberts Smart Centre, says expulsions and suspensions should be "extraordinarily rare events."
"Particularly with kids with mental health problems, who don't want to
be in school in the first place," Plaus says.
Instead, he wants to see more support in the classrooms, and rather than out-of-school
suspensions, have in-school suspensions.
Plaus, who will also speak at tonight's community meeting, said zero tolerance serves as nothing more than a Band-Aid solution to deeper problems.
"I don't think the problem can be solved at the legislature level," Plaus says, adding the solutions have to come from the school board, schools and teachers.
Plaus says it's worrisome that statistics show one in five children suffer
emotional problems, but only one in six is treated.
"The government has got to adequately attend to the issue for resources
for schools," Plaus says.
Tonight's forum is at the Jim Durrell Recreation Centre, from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
nelly.elayoubi@ott.sunpub.com