I have been that pain-in-the-arse parent. I’ve been the one running up to school complaining about what I saw as unfairness towards my perfect angel child. (Turns out, in my defence, it was unfair. The newish teacher had no real idea how to mark against the criteria.)
But explaining to a new teacher how to mark assignments is not the real reason – or even the only reason – there are new rules which will allow principals across systems to ban parents from schools.
Look, it’s possible the real reason is this. Parents are mad and getting madder. They are angry and violent. Their respect for authority is minimal. They are putting teachers at risk. And you should see their kids. Mind-blowing.
Maybe that’s why the Minns government plans to give principals power to ban adults who threaten or abuse students, staff, or other community members. That ban will exclude those adults from school grounds and from school-related activities like sport. These new powers will apply to every single school in every single system.
It’s weird, though. Principals already have those powers. The unusually named Inclosed Lands Act has meant parents or other adults could be kept out of schools for behaviour that was threatening or violent. These new School Community Safety Orders and Protection Orders will also include phone, email and social media.
So why this big hoo-ha now? Hmm. Could it be because there were a record number of principals and teachers experiencing this kind of violence at the hands of parents and students and now the Department of Education has had to pay them out? There has to be a big statement to make it look as if something is being done. The department could not enlighten us by our deadline.
But here are some other examples of what parents and students do to principals and teachers. I spoke to a school leader from south-west Sydney. A parent broke his door in a rage. I spoke to a younger principal from Sydney’s north-west who told me a parent made threats of physical violence towards her. She had to call for help. I spoke to a number of former teachers who could no longer stand the threats, the physicality, the sheer terror of dealing with daily anger from parents. Then there are the students whose main aim appears to be to sexually harass young female teachers. I would like to belt them myself, but I don’t think that would fix the problem.
The Australian Catholic University’s Paul Kidson, whose team reports annually on the health and wellbeing of principals, vividly remembers the time he was poked in the chest by a parent in 2013. It was at a parent-teacher event, and two of his deputies quickly moved towards Kidson, thinking they would have to step in. In his ACU gig, he sees the problems principals and teachers face – and there’s just not enough support for our education workforce across a range of areas. Money’s good, but it’s not enough.
Meanwhile, the Greens’ Abigail Boyd – chair of the NSW upper house education committee – says she is hearing that violence between staff is also on the rise. Boyd asked the question in budget estimates a few weeks ago, and we are still waiting for an answer. Has there been an increase in occupational violence, not just from parents and students but from and between other staff members?
The statistics suggest not. Workers’ compensation claims reduced by nearly 1000 instances between 2023 and 2025, a decrease of around 15 per cent. Bullying and harassment has also trended down in that time – about 10 per cent. Some of this decline is surely about the improvements to conditions. NSW teachers received a thoroughly appropriate and well-deserved pay increase not long after the election of the Minns government.
Those figures are straight from Mary Noy at budget estimates, who’s been in the job of Executive Director, Health, Safety and Staff Wellbeing for 14 months after six years in the same gig for NSW Police. Still, that’s a hell of a lot of claims being made, well over 5000.
But I am concerned that there are other stresses in schools which we aren’t doing anything about – and banning angry parents won’t help. I think we need to seriously look at how complaints are dealt with in school communities and the impact that has on staff. The never-ending series of investigations which go nowhere. The capacity of some staff members to file complaint after complaint, often unproven, often groundless, but then those complaints not only take their toll on everyone around them and take up valuable time, they also take time away from the actual work of schools. I’d like to see the figures on that. Are there any? How are principals dealing with their internal dramas? Are they doing it well?
No amount of community protection orders will fix those problems, or even the problems caused by angry parents. As Kidson says, no policy and no legislation is going to generate character and culture. The lack of respect doesn’t start at school. It starts at home. It is absolutely fine to question authority – in fact, I highly recommend it. But I don’t recommend punching holes through doors just because your kid got suspended. In fact, your kid probably got suspended for exactly that behaviour, which he learnt at home. From you.
Boyd’s Legislative Council colleague Mark Banasiak, from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, is also keeping a close eye on what happens to our teaching workforce. Why? Banasiak was a teacher for 16 years. He fully gets the chaos and joy of education. He knows the system isn’t working as it should.
“Why are we giving them the same powers with little extra support?” he asks.
As I say, it is perfectly OK and even a good idea to question authority. No need for physical or verbal violence either from parents or staff. Sometimes we feel sad or angry when our kids are unhappy and feel as if they have been badly treated. Belting the principal won’t make the problem go away.
Jenna Price is a regular columnist.
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