A report presented to the Waterloo Region District School Board trustees on Monday night painted a picture of declining year-to-date student suspensions and shed light on the details surrounding those who were.
Comparing data from October 2023 and October 2024, elementary student suspensions decreased by 26, while those among secondary students dropped by 52.
Last month, a total of 108 elementary and 165 secondary student suspensions were levied, down from 132 and 178 during the same time frame in 2023.
Violent incidents among students have increased, with 25 having taken place between both age groups in October. It represents an increase of 15 from 2023.
A violent incident is defined as the possession of a weapon, including possessing a firearm, physical assault causing bodily harm requiring medical attention, sexual assault, robbery, using a weapon to cause or to threaten bodily harm to another person, extortion, hate and/or bias-motivated occurrences.
The report went into even more detail regarding suspensions by gender, grade, length, category and location from September 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024
Males represented 71 per cent of all suspensions which totalled 2,524, with male students in Grade 9 being handed 318 suspensions, the most of any grade.
Length of the suspensions varied between one and 16 days but 85.5 per cent were three days or less.
A total of 968 were for "Code of Conduct Violations" and 760 were given out for fighting/violence. Each incident could be given one or more reasons for the consequences.
The most common locations for suspensions were the classroom with 576, school grounds with 500 and the hallway with 408. Six were handed out due to incidents in staircases.
For more information on the report visit wrdsb.ca.
