Students at Montreal high school under investigation say teacher made comments that shocked class
School service centre says it spoke to teacher following the remarks
High school students at one of the four Montreal schools under investigation by Quebec's Education Ministry for alleged toxic behaviour among staff say their teacher referenced wanting to hit them last week.
The students' account is one of the few specific incidents to be reported after the ministry announced it was investigating the schools following a series of columns aired by French-language radio station 98.5 FM over the past year.
The students CBC News spoke with on Tuesday morning go to La Voie high school in the city's west-central Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood. They said one of their teachers made remarks last week that stunned the class.
The service centre overseeing all the schools in question, the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM), told CBC News it had met with the teacher following the incident. It is unclear whether this teacher's behaviour was already being investigated.
Adalyhia Abigail Stamp, 16, said the teacher was speaking to her class about grades when she made the remarks.
"They mentioned something about our grades, and that we weren't doing so good. So they were like, 'If I could, I would hit you guys to get you to study and do better in your classes.' And she was mentioning her old country and how they did it there, and how she can't do it anymore because it's banned," Adalyhia told CBC News.
"I would say half of the class kind of laughed it off, and then the other side of the class were a little concerned because she seemed — like, she was laughing, but she seemed like she was very serious about it."
CBC News spoke with other students at the school who confirmed Adalyhia's account.
Of the four Montreal schools, three of which are in Côte-des-Neiges and one in Saint-Michel, Bedford elementary school in particular has found itself in the spotlight after 11 teachers were suspended over the weekend.
Earlier this month, the Education Ministry released a 90-page report on the climate at Bedford. The ministry followed up by saying it was looking into similar allegations at three other schools: La Voie high school and Saint-Pascal-Baylon and Bienville elementary schools.
Despite a warning in the report by the ministry not to draw conclusions about the teachers' cultural backgrounds, politicians appear to be doing just that.
Quebec Premier François Legault, Education Minister Bernard Drainville and Parti Québécois (PQ) Leader Paul St-Pierre-Plamondon have all linked the allegedly unhealthy climate among teachers at Bedford to the ongoing debate about religion in public institutions and the province's secularism law, commonly referred to as Bill 21.
Chedly Belkhodja, a professor at Concordia University's School of Community of Public Affairs, says the statements from the Coalition Avenir Québec party and the PQ are basically "the same tune" that's been sung in the province for years when it comes to cultural identity.
"Nationalist groups are using some issues to promote a certain vision of identity in Quebec and it's always to the detriment of immigrant populations, mostly Muslims and people from North Africa," said Belkhodja.
Written by Verity Stevenson with reporting by Matt D'Amours and Paula Dayan-Perez