The Waterloo Region District School Board has experienced a steady rise in the number of incidents involving bad student behaviour with no indication it's about to end any time soon.
The latest report on cases of violent or potentially dangerous incidents between students and staff shows a combined increase of 431 incidents in elementary and secondary schools over the last year.
Data collected from Nov. 16 2023 to Jan 31, 2024 shows that the lion's share of these cases are coming from elementary schools with a total of 971 and only 66 from secondary schools.
During the same time last year, elementary schools had 564 incidents while secondary schools reported 42.
These incidents are comprised of four separate classifications: hazard, first aid, health care and time off with 75 per cent of all incidents.
The school board describes hazards as the worker sustaining no injury during the incident or it was a near miss.
"The Board and Unions actively encourage employees to report workplace hazards in order to act proactively to prevent more serious incidents," said WRDSB in the report, which was presented to the during Monday's meeting of the board of trustees.
The number of suspensions has also been on the rise for elementary schools with a total of 654 for this school year, nearly an increase of 100 year-over-year.
Secondary schools have seen a decrease in these suspensions posting 848 this year compared to 963 the year before.
During Monday's board meeting, Cambridge school board trustee Cindy Watson pointed out that violent incidents have also escalated.
But WRDSB superintendent Bill Lemon said trying to pinpoint one variable as to why they are increasing is "incredibly difficult" and staff is working to solve the root issues behind these violent incidents.
"We continue to pursue upstream interventions to prevent these from occurring," said Lemon.
Watson agreed that looking into things like mental health and specific training is good, but the numbers keep going up and they need solutions.
"It's time to reevaluate; it's time to look a little deeper and find out why the numbers are increasing," she said.
The report said the school board recently introduced "new and innovative staffing initiatives" to help support the needs of our highest needs students.
Behaviour Management Systems teams have been created to support staff and administration by responding to student-specific referrals and addressing support for safety plans.
They also assist in facilitating the transition of students returning to in-school learning.
In previous reports where student behavioural incidents were on the rise, the school board noted the increases can be attributed to students returning to class from the pandemic and being in a group setting for the first time, particularly in reference to younger students.
The 2023-2024 school year has posted higher numbers in nearly every category of incidents since data started being collected in 2017.
