This suggestion was made by Frank Handy, the chair of Victoria’s Independent Office for School Dispute Resolution, amid research indicating that rude behavior from parents and caregivers towards school staff is on the rise.
Slander and gossip have reached 65 percent, and cyberbullying has increased by nearly 88 percent, according to the 2024 Australian Principals’ Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing survey conducted by Australian Catholic University.
Shadow education minister Jess Wilson noted that the coalition plans to emphasize the conduct of parents and students in schools “over the next few years”.
“This is a problem for teachers right across the state, I hear it time and time again from principals, particularly when they see new graduate teachers coming into the classroom,” Wilson said.
“This has consequences, this means we’re seeing teachers exit.
”We’re open to different solutions and we’re certainly looking at that as part of our policy development process.”
Parents Victoria agrees online harassment is completely unacceptable, but it believes fining parents is not the solution.Â
“[It] may act as a deterrent, a prevention, but it’s not a cure,” Parents Victoria chief executive Gail McHardy said.
Education Minister Ben Carroll says there are no plans to introduce the proposal.
“We already have a school-wide positive behaviours initiative where there are issues at the school that we need to resolve,” Carroll said.
“For really really, the most difficult situations we always also have a school community safety order system in place where authorised officers in the department of education can issue notices where parents are banned from attending a particular school.
“We are talking about a very small number of notices that get issued every year.”
