Being pushed down the stairs, fights happening in the washroom, students jumping other students outside school — that’s how Ruben Dewar remembers high school in Iqaluit. 

Dewar graduated in 2022 and says he saw a major increase in violent incidents after the pandemic. 

“Kids have a lot of grief and some of them have no hope of doing better,” Dewar said. “What they do is take their anger out on people with fighting, which is not a healthy way.” 

The increase in violence Dewar remembers isn’t reflected in the data from Nunavut’s Department of Education obtained by CBC News. 

That data suggests that since 2022, the number of violent incidents reported at Nunavut schools is decreasing. In the 2022-2023 school year, there were 245 reported violent incidents. Last school year that number dropped to just 101.

It’s an even sharper decrease when compared to the more than 1,000 incidents reported in the 2019-2020 school year that a CBC investigation uncovered. The Nunavut government said the decrease since then needs to be interpreted carefully because a new system to track incidents was introduced in 2022. 

NTA president says violent behaviour is normalized

Justin Matchett, the president of the Nunavut Teachers Association, said data the government has gathered since 2022 is “misleading” because more incidents are taking place than are being reported.

The current tracking system relies heavily on voluntary self-reporting by teachers. Matchett says only major incidents are being reported, while day-to-day abuse gets swept under the rug.

“We take a lot more phone calls than what we see reflected in the numbers,” Matchett said. “It’s happening so frequently that teachers are just not filling it out because, one, they don’t think anything’s going to be a result of it. And two, a lot of teachers don’t have that extra time to do this voluntary activity. They’re overworked, they’re stressed, they’re tired.”

Matchett said teachers are also not taking the time to report because violent behaviour is normalized in the classroom.

“It’s become so accepted and part of the job that there’s aspects of what’s happening in school that our members don’t consider violent incidents,” he said. “Verbal abuse is still a violence in a school. If you’re in your job and you go to your office and you’re told to F off three times a day, you might not work there very long. But that’s become a common situation in our schools.”

GN acknowledges data is ‘incomplete’

In a written statement, the government said it agrees the reported data doesn’t reflect the full reality in classrooms and that the actual number of violent incidents is “likely higher than what is captured in official data.”

The government doesn’t view the data as misleading, but rather “incomplete and one piece of a broader understanding of school safety.” 

The GN said it has expanded mental health support for students, provided de-escalation training and increased trauma-informed and culturally-responsive practices. 

But, the government agreed with Matchett that a clearer, more consistent definition of violence is needed to ensure both major and minor cases are reported. 

Officials say they are trying to simplify reporting tools and processes, provide clearer training on what should be reported and are exploring ways to reduce administrative burden on teachers. 

With a few more months of the school year left, Matchett said the number of reported incidents this year have already surpassed last year’s numbers.

“From what we deal with our members, we’re seeing it increase in a lot of different ways. Verbal, racial, physical, student-on-student, student-on-teacher,” he said. “They are increasing.”