MONTREAL — Quebec teachers should be evaluated every two years, according to new recommendations that stem from a controversy at a Montreal elementary school in which teachers allegedly used physical and psychological violence on students and staff.
The government should also consider mandating the use of French in schools wherever students are present, and banning all religious activities in schools, including after hours, says a plan released Friday by two independent advisers appointed by the province.
The recommendations come in the wake of a government report released last October that revealed a group of teachers, many of North African descent, had imposed autocratic rule at Bedford school.
Teachers had yelled at and humiliated students, the report found. Some didn’t believe in learning disabilities and attributed students’ difficulties to laziness. Subjects like science and sex education were either ignored or barely taught, and girls were prevented from playing soccer. Eleven teachers have since been suspended from the school and are under investigation.
The controversy made waves across Quebec, with Premier François Legault claiming the teachers were trying to “introduce Islamist religious concepts into a public school.” Seventeen other schools were later investigated after new allegations emerged of Muslim religious practices in classrooms.
Written by advisers Jean-Pierre Aubin et Malika Habel, the action plan contains 24 recommendations for staff at Bedford school and 10 broader recommendations, including legislative changes that would affect schools across the province.
Education Minister Bernard Drainville said in a statement Friday that "all options are on the table" to prevent another situation like the one at Bedford. He has already promised to table new legislation to strengthen secularism in public schools.
"The safety and well-being of our students is non-negotiable," he said.
The plan says schools should be required to evaluate their teachers every two years, with support from an expert as needed. It also says the government should consider enshrining in law the obligation to speak French anywhere that students are present in schools, including classrooms, hallways and common areas. The Bedford report found that staff often spoke in languages other than French.
Another recommendation says the government should modify Quebec's law on public education to ban all religious activities in schools, during and after school hours. The plan also suggests Quebec should reconsider whether to create a professional order of teachers.
In response, teachers unions were quick to raise doubts about the need for legislative solutions to what they say is a localized problem.
"These are 17 schools out of approximately 3,000 in Quebec," Éric Gingras, president of the Centrale des syndicats du Québec, said in a statement. "It’s not true that things are bad everywhere."
The union says the law on public education already gives schools "all the necessary levers" to supervise and evaluate teachers. "Before imposing more new measures, we must question what went wrong in these specific cases," Gingras said.
The plan makes two dozen recommendations specific to Bedford, including that management should clarify the difference between discipline and violence and between learning disabilities and laziness. It also says an educational adviser should help staff teach the science program.
Aubin et Habel also wrote that the "rigidity" of the teachers' collective agreement can lead to "prioritizing the working conditions and the professional autonomy of the teacher to the detriment of other considerations." They stressed the importance of focusing on students' well-being.
Drainville said Thursday he had received a report on the other 17 schools that may have breached the province's secularism rules, and was not reassured. That report is still being analyzed and should be made public in the coming weeks.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 14, 2025.
Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press
