WA Police Minister Liza Harvey held a crime forum in Busselton on Friday addressing questions from residents about issues which affected the community.
During the forum a Busselton school teacher said he was assaulted in public by three students and was forced to teach them in the classroom the following day.
The teacher said at the forum that he wanted educational officers to be made public officers so when they were assaulted there were processes in place to deal with the students.
“That is one step in the direction of making the workplace more safe for teachers. There is no process in place that deals with what happens when the students come back into your school and sit in your class,” he said.
The Department of Education confirmed there had been 102 reported incidents this year in South West schools which were broadly categorised as assaults by students against teachers.
These included minor incidents such as objects accidentally hitting a teacher, students accidentally knocking into a teacher and a teacher being struck when intervening in a fight. These also included more serious but rare incidents which required police involvement.
At the forum, Ms Harvey said to make teachers public officers - and a teacher was assaulted - it would mean mandatory sentencing with a minimum jail term of six months.
Ms Harvey said if the attack resulted in bodily harm or grievous bodily harm there could be a minimum jail term of 12 months.
She said when this had been discussed in the past, the difficulty of that solution in schools was that no mandatory sentencing rules existed for children.
“With the exception of 16 to 17 year old recidivist home burglars or breaking into homes,” she said.
Ms Harvey said teachers were reluctant to step into a regime were children were sentenced to jail for a mandatory term and that mandatory sentencing was not the answer when dealing with children.
The Department of Education South West regional executive director Neil Milligan said while most students in public schools behaved well, teachers and school staff had every right to go about their job without being assaulted.
“Principals are supported to take strong action against any student who threatens or lashes out at teachers and school staff, and that action includes suspension, withdrawal of privileges and, in the most severe cases, exclusion,” he said.
“The main job of teachers is to educate, if children don’t get these messages at home, it makes a teacher’s job doubly difficult.
“No students or staff should have to put up with harassment, verbal or physical abuse.”
