Page 7 - CARING and SAFE SCHOOLS in ONTARIO

Ministry Initiatives
▪ The Ministry of Education has undertaken a number of initiatives to help schools build a culture of caring and address issues of safety and inappropriate behaviour in schools. In December 2004, the ministry established the Safe Schools Action Team and invested in a comprehensive, province-wide, bullying-prevention strategy. After widespread public consultation, the Safe Schools Action Team released Shaping Safer Schools: A Bullying Prevention Action Plan in November 2005 and Safe Schools Policy and Practice: An Agenda for Action in June 2006. These two reports identified priorities for action and made recommendations to the ministry and school boards with respect to bullying prevention, progressive discipline, com- munity and parental involvement, application of the Safe Schools Act, programs
for suspended/expelled students, education and training, communication, and a Provincial Safe Schools Framework.
In addition, in December 2008, the Safe Schools Action Team released a further report – Shaping a Culture of Respect in Our Schools: Promoting Safe and Healthy Relationships – calling for action to address serious issues such as gender-based violence, homophobia, sexual harassment, and inappropriate sexual behaviour between students in schools.
The ministry itself consulted extensively on the safe schools provisions of the Education Act in order to develop legislative amendments and related policies and regulations that would address the questions of school safety and of how to respond constructively to challenging behaviour by students. The amendments that came into force on February 1, 2008, mandated a “progressive discipline” approach for addressing inappropriate behaviour, to enable schools to provide appropriate disci- pline while also ensuring that students have adequate opportunities to continue their education. These amendments also mandated the provision of professional supports, programming supports, and training for teachers and principals. Addi- tional amendments, which came into force on February 1, 2010, ensure that all serious incidents that occur at school are reported to the principal, that parents of victims are made aware of such incidents, and that staff who work directly with students respond to incidents when they occur. (See Appendix 1 of Policy/Program Memorandum No. 145, “Progressive Discipline and Promoting Positive Student Behaviour” [October 19, 2009].)
The term “progressive discipline”, as defined in PPM No. 145, refers to “a whole- school approach that utilizes a continuum of prevention programs, interventions, supports, and consequences to address inappropriate student behaviour and to build upon strategies that promote and foster positive behaviours.” Specifically, this means that “When inappropriate behaviour occurs, disciplinary measures should be applied within a framework that shifts the focus from one that is solely punitive to one that is both corrective and supportive. Schools should utilize a range of interventions, supports, and consequences that are developmentally appropriate
Introduction
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