School Principals: Don't Report Student Fights

(Toronto, Ontario) Apparently, reporting student altercations would take too much time, seemingly even when a crime is involved.

"While reports to the police should be made" in cases of physical assault where a student requires medical attention, among other situations, "involving the police in school life is a decision best left to educators who know students the best," says yesterday's letter to the education minister from Lisa Vincent, president of the Ontario Principals' Council.

But Tory MPP Frank Klees (Newmarket-Aurora) says the province needs "the force and effect of law which provides for consequences when the protocol is not followed."

Klees has been pressing the provincial government to close the loophole in the Child and Family Services Act, which mandates reporting of adult-on-student crime or suspicion of it, but not student-on-student.

Avoiding the reporting of crimes I suspect is desired. From a principal's perspective, not wanting to chronicle student-on-student crime, and thereby avoid compiling a statistical basis for comparing school administrations, makes some sense.

Nobody wants to document stuff that projects a bad light on themselves.