Safe Schools Act

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The Safe Schools Act is an Ontario bill, implemented in 2000 to provide a definitive set of regulations for punishments that must be issued for students. The bill is often referred to as a zero-tolerance policy, however "the presence of mitigating factors in the Act and school board policies precludes it from being strictly defined as a zero tolerance regime".[1] Nonetheless, the bill has been criticized for not providing enough flexibility to schools for disciplining students on a case-by-case basis, preferring instead mandatory suspensions for a wide range of behaviour including verbal abuse and physical violence.[2] A report commissioned by the Ontario Human Rights Commission concluded that "there is a strong perception supported by some empirical evidence that the Act and school board policies are having a disproportionate impact on racial minority students, particularly Black students, and students with disabilities."[1]

[edit] External links and references

Bill 81, The Safe Schools Act
  1. ^ a b Ken Bhattacharjee (2003). "The Ontario Safe Schools Act: School Discipline and Discrimination" (HTML). Ontario Human Rights Commission. Retrieved on 2006-07-31.
  2. ^ "Editorial: School discipline requires flexibility", 2006-07-03. Retrieved on July 31, 2006.