Parents express shock and confusion over Montreal school suspensions

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Parents at a Montreal elementary school, where 11 teachers were suspended over the weekend, expressed shock and confusion during after-school pickup on Monday, with several questioning whether the situation had been exaggerated.

The suspensions, announced Saturday, came after a Quebec government report found that a “dominant clan” of teachers created a toxic environment at Bedford Elementary School, imposing strict rules on students and intimidating anyone who opposed them.

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“It’s shocking for everyone. And we don’t know exactly what happened, or why they were suspended,” said Kamrun Nahar, whose daughter attends the Côte-des-Neiges school. “Eleven teachers at once?”

His daughter’s teacher is among those suspended. Like others who spoke to The Gazette on Monday, Nahar struggled to reconcile the report’s findings with what he knows from teachers at the school.

The report that led to the suspensions detailed events between 2016 and 2024.

It was found that children at the school were subject to physical and psychological violence and teachers refused to teach or paid little attention to subjects such as oral communication, science, religion and sexual education.

It also noted that some teachers believed that learning disabilities and autism did not exist and that excessive discipline and control would work to “break” some students and get them “back on the right path”.

The report described the group of troubled teachers as being of North African descent, some of whom attended a local mosque together. Witnesses also told government investigators that the local Muslim community exerted a “strong influence” on several school officials.

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Several Muslim parents with children at the school said Monday they fear the suspensions will fuel political discourse and cast the Muslim community in Quebec in a negative light.

“If a teacher did something, he should pay for it,” said Houda, a 43-year-old woman who asked that her last name not be published.

“But I’ve never had a problem in 11 years,” she added, noting that she has one son who attends the school and two others who graduated from it. “No bullying, no yelling, nothing like that.”

Zahira, whose son is in third grade at Bedford, also questioned some of the issues detailed in the report.

“We are parents – of course we don’t want our children to be humiliated or bullied,” she said, describing the teachers she knows at the school as competent educators.

“We have no idea what this is about,” she added. “But as a Muslim community, we are now also targeted by this. And our children know that their parents are Muslim, so it takes on a whole different meaning.”

In Quebec City on Monday, Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon called for stricter secularism rules in light of the school controversy, urging other politicians not to shy away from the debate because it involves religion.

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St-Pierre Plamondon said the situation illustrates how the absence of a mix of students in Montreal schools has led some cultural or religious communities to take a majority position.

“The danger is not just in Quebec,” he told reporters. “You can see it all over the Western world.”

The government’s investigation into the school was triggered by a series of radio reports from Montreal’s 98.5 FM that began in May of last year.

To complete the 89-page report, officials from the Ministry of Education conducted more than 102 hours of interviews with 73 people and participated in a meeting of the school’s board of directors.

Other parents present at the school on Monday said they had heard rumors about the teachers’ alleged conduct, but were still shocked by the extent of the details revealed in the report.

Jean-Hugues Fournier’s son, now in fifth grade, has been studying in Bedford since preschool.

Fournier said he no longer feels comfortable keeping his son there, but worries that the only other option — having him change schools with just two years left — could be more detrimental to his education.

He said his son used to tell him things about teachers at school that Fournier thought were exaggerated.

He now sees it in a different light, he said.

“I was worried when all this started coming out,” Fournier said. “I doubted him for no reason?”

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