A Montreal mother says her son’s school, as well as the English Montreal School Board are dismissing her concerns.
She says her six-year-old son’s math teacher at Westmount Park elementary said she would cut her child’s fingers off with an axe.
Back in September, Julie Chauvin says the teacher told her something she hasn’t forgotten.
“She said she spoke to my son in a way she’d never spoken to an adult. She stood James up in front of the class and apologized to him,” Chauvin explained. “I asked what she said, and she wouldn’t tell me. I asked my son, and he wouldn’t tell me either.”
That prompted her first visit to the principal at Westmount Park School.
“I actually asked the school to remove him from the class at the beginning of the year, and they said they didn’t have the resources to do so,” Chauvin said.
Her second visit to the principal came after she received her son’s first term report card – which indicated he failed math.
“For a grade one student to get a 35 [per cent] in math – that’s kind of drastic,” she said.
Chauvin felt her concerns about her child’s math teacher were being dismissed.
Then, she says, in late May, her son told her the same teacher threatened to cut off his fingers with an axe.
“I didn’t really believe him, because who’s going to believe that a teacher is going to say she’s going to bring an axe to school,” Chauvin recounts. “But he’s like ‘no, she said she’s going to bring it to school and cut my fingers off.”
Furious, Chauvin says she returned to the principal the next day.
An email exchange followed where the principal wrote that the Regional Director at the English Montreal School Board “has been made aware of all your concerns and the numerous class incidents, including the axe comment.”
“We’re not going to comment on an email between a principal and a parent,” said Mike Cohen, EMSB spokesperson. “The reality is, an allegation was made and we need to follow due process.
Cohen says complaints against teachers are not uncommon, and it’s preferred they are handled at the school level.
But he assured CTV Montreal the complaint has now reached human resources at the school board.
Chauvin says she’s been told the process from this point on is confidential, but says the principal did tell her the teacher made the comment in jest.
“He told me she admitted to saying she was going to cut his fingers off with an axe, but she was joking. But my issue is a six-year-old can’t tell if you’re joking or if you’re serious,” she said.
Chauvin has filed a complaint with the Quebec Ombudsman.
“She shouldn’t be a teacher,” she said. “When you become a teacher, you like children – you want to help them and educate them. And she doesn’t seem to want to do that.”
The school removed Chauvin’s son from his math class, and he’ll stay out for the remainder of the year.
