Presentation to the WRDSB Trustees

Dear Members,

On March 19th, 2018 on behalf of EAA members, I presented to the WRDSB Trustees on the issue of student aggression. Over 40 EAA Members and others who showed up to support.

I made it very clear that my presentation was NOT about the students we support, but rather the need to improve the conditions in which we support them in.

The presentation focused on the need for Adequate Resources, Collaborative Professionalism, Notification of Risk and Professional Development.

To get these points across, a slide show was created that showed pictures of injuries sustained in the line of work and data collected from both the HR-05-770 employee incident/accident reports and our EAA survey on violence in the workplace. As well, over a dozen members showed up in their PPE (head to toe) to give Trustees a visual on a common safety control measure in place.

Another important issue to address was information shared and recorded in the minutes of the January 22nd, 2018 Trustee meeting regarding employee incident reports:

"The majority of incidents did not result in a physical injury."

The classification of a 'no injury' report is misleading when it comes to incident reporting. I chose four random examples of 'no injury' reports being referred to in January and shared:

the student attempted to put their hand down CYWs pants, pull her shirt up and later ran her hand up the inside of her leg to her private parts
student was escalated, pushed, stomped, hit, kicked, punched, slapped - restrained using BMS
student hit staff during a fire drill while staff was trying to keep safe distance from others; stressful time for student, they wanted to go back into school before 3 bells rant
student kicked EA in the groin, struck and punched EA in the face trying to get out the door

We do not consider any of those a non-injury. Also expressed, was that not all injuries are physical. Worker mental health is at risk from being exposed to continuous traumatic events.
Overall, we feel our concerns were heard and action is being taken. There was a motion carried unanimously to:

"...differentiate between staffing groups and provide further details on non-injuries when presenting the Quarterly Report on Student Aggression to the Board."

This motion is connected to motions passed on January 22nd, 2018 for the Trustees to be provided quarterly reports with further details on workplace violence in order to determine where resources are needed.

Included in this email for your reference are the minutes of January 22nd and March 19th Trustee meeting, data on incident reports and results of the EAA survey on workplace violence.

I want to acknowledge our EAA Third Officer at Large, Jenn Engel, for attending the Trustee meetings and keeping the executive updated and informed.

If there are any questions or comments or if you have a health and safety concern, please contact me through the website at www.wrdsbeaa.

Stay safe everyone,
Lisa Weiler Haskins
Health and Safety Officer
EAA