We welcomed the opportunity to meet with Mayor John Tory and senior representatives from the City of Toronto and Toronto Police today to have a frank discussion on incidents of youth violence that are occurring in our city and how, working together, we can take additional steps to make our schools and communities safer.
All of us have a shared commitment to do everything we can to keep students, staff and families safe in our communities, of which schools are an important part.
At the Toronto District School Board, we are taking a number of additional steps to address school safety including:
-
Creating a Safe Schools Audit Team which will work with schools to ensure Caring and Safe Schools policies, practices and procedures are being followed appropriately and work with school teams to provide feedback and address concerns.
-
Ensuring every secondary school has a student engagement/safety team so that students are informing local school-based safety initiatives.
-
Formalizing a network of existing experts and organizations that directly work to reduce risk factors that lead to youth disengagement and violence through the creation of an expert reference group.
-
Expanding a new initiative that works with community groups during and after school to offer a variety of programs focused on supporting youth.
-
Working with Toronto Police to update the existing Police-School Board Protocol.
-
Continuing to be an active participant in the City of Toronto’s SafeTO community safety plan.
-
Allocating additional resources to schools where concerns have been raised, further building on an initial investment of $5.9 million made last year to add staff such as School-Based Safety Monitors, social workers, child and youth counsellors/workers.
-
Anticipating recommendations arising from a review of recent violent incidents in and around schools, which will be finalized in the near future.
While the TDSB plays an important role in our communities, we cannot do this alone. We look forward to increased cooperation between the school board and the City of Toronto as we believe it is critical that other levels of government and community partners work collaboratively with us to address this growing concern.
Another meeting with the City and Toronto Police is being scheduled in the next couple of weeks to expand on today’s discussion, provide updates on implementation of next steps and continue developing urgently needed supports on behalf of students and school communities.
Rachel Chernos Lin Neethan Shan Colleen Russell-Rawlins
Chair of the Board Vice Chair of the Board Director of Education