Schools need counsellors, not police, Falconer says

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Kristin Rushowy

Paola Loriggio

Schools are in desperate need of more social workers and counsellors as one way to help combat youth violence, lawyer Julian Falconer said in a speech yesterday.

Falconer, who headed a panel looking into the safety of the public high schools in the city that reported to the Toronto board last January, said children come to school with a lot of "baggage" and can't learn. Teachers and administrators are already run off their feet, Falconer told a Rotary Club luncheon at the Royal York Hotel.

"You can't help kids unpack their baggage on the group if you don't have anyone in place," he said.

"Kids' safety is compromised on a daily basis," he said. The Rotary Club booked Falconer months ago, and even he commented on the "fluke in timing" given yesterday's release of a provincial report on youth violence.

The Falconer panel was created by the Toronto District School Board after Jordan Manners, 15, was shot to death at CW Jefferys Collegiate in May 2007. That school was also the site of a stabbing on Tuesday. A 17-year-old boy was arrested and charged with aggravated assault in connection with the stabbing of a Grade 11 student.

The alleged attacker appeared briefly in court yesterday afternoon and was remanded into custody until Tuesday. Neither teenager can be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, and a publication ban prevents media from publishing information revealed in court.

Among the Falconer panel's 126 recommendations was that the board to hire 20 additional social workers, 24 attendance counsellors and 20 child and youth counsellors.

But the board has put off much of that until funding can be found, and Falconer called on the provincial government to provide the money. Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said the government has put more money in the system for 689 more support staff in the Toronto public board alone since the Liberals have been in power.

"I don't think the discussion about adequacy will ever stop," she said. "But we have been putting more resources in and been putting them in schools to address inequity."

John Campbell, chair of the Toronto District School Board, said "we're doing all we can with the available resources we have," but that the board has many priorities, such as placing education assistants in kindergarten classrooms in needy neighbourhoods.

Falconer also called it "facile" to say the stabbing at Jefferys, or youth violence, can be solved by putting a police officer in schools.