VUONG: TDSB tolerates assault, but has zero tolerance for self-defence

Supporting the bully and protecting everyone else are not opposing goals, but the board is achieving neither

Published Jun 24, 2026  •  Last updated 1 hour ago  •  4 minute read

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) head office located at 5050 Yonge St. in North York. Photo by Jack Boland /Toronto Sun

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As a father, here is the sentence that keeps me up at night: If your seven-year-old is beaten at school and dares to defend themselves, the full weight of the system falls on them — while the child beating them is met, every time, with patience and endless second chances.

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Unfortunately, this is not a hypothetical. It is what a Toronto District School Board (TDSB) principal is practicing, right now. Zero tolerance for self-defence — near-limitless tolerance for assault. Sit with how twisted that is.

Consider what one Toronto family has endured since January at a school in west-end Toronto. On Jan. 23, their seven-year-old son was chasing a soccer ball at recess when another child threw him to the ground, punched him four times in the back of the head, and stood over him: “Have you had enough, or do you want some more?” A threat coming from a student in Grade 2.

It did not stop there. Four days later, the same child sought him out to swear at him by name. On Feb. 23, an unprovoked kick while the children lined up. On March 11, while the boy sat quietly reading, a hard object was hurled at his face, striking him just above the eye and raising a welt on the orbital bone. On March 25, he was hit in the stomach from behind while standing at bat.

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Through every attack, he never retaliated. He has told his parents and his family doctor — and the principal has also been made aware — that he no longer feels safe, because he never knows when the next attack is coming. Recess used to be his favourite part of the day. But, now, it is the part he dreads. The time he should be spending playing with his friends is instead spent actively staying far away from his assailant.

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How is the board handling the bully?

So what has TDSB done? It has focused on reassurance and managing the concerned parents. The principal explains that the other boy — who, by the school’s own account, has an adult at his side all day — already receives maximum resources. The superintendent, when the family escalated, said the same. The single new measure, weeks in, after multiple incidents of assault and multiple conversations with the principal and superintendent, was to route the aggressor through a different door at recess.

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If you’re not angry yet, here is what should enrage every parent in this city.

The child throwing the punches is handled through what the board calls “progressive discipline.” They are provided with understanding, context, and a graduated series of infinite second chances. He’s given sympathy, literal hugs, and story time. This is somehow meant to teach him appropriate behaviour. But the mother of the boy being punched was told plainly: If her son ever raised a hand to protect himself, he would face zero tolerance.

The aggressor gets process. The victim gets a warning. Read that again: If the victim dares to act in self-defence to protect himself, he — not his assailant — will face real consequences. From the TDSB’s twisted perspective, the onus of protection is on the child victim to constantly look over his shoulder instead of the school or grownups entrusted with his care to keep him safe.

Not just two boys affected

And this is not one family’s private misfortune. Quietly, other parents have come to this boy’s mother with at least four other families reporting that their own children have been hurt by the same child. That changes the problem entirely. This is no longer a single case of targeted bullying — it is one child repeatedly targeting and harming the children around him.

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I say this with no malice toward him. A child who hurts others consistently is himself being failed. He is clearly in a setting that cannot meet his needs or keep anyone safe. Supporting him and protecting everyone else are not opposing goals, but, right now, the board is achieving neither.

There is a deeper discomfort beneath all this. We have never had a “castle law” in Canada and, unlike Americans, we give people little assurance that defending themselves won’t bring legal jeopardy. A private member’s bill now before the House of Commons would, for the first time in years, declare that someone facing an intruder in their home is presumed to have acted reasonably. The fight over it is revealing: our instinct is to scrutinize the person who fought back as harshly as the one who attacked. A seven-year-old is learning that lesson in real time — punished in advance for protecting himself.

The school is real. The pattern is documented and the school board knows this family’s name. No parent should need a newspaper column to make a school board do the one thing its policy demands: Keep a child safe.

With the school year about to end, the school and the board have the time to develop a proper solution because “we’re doing our best” plainly isn’t. These children, first and foremost the victims and, yes, even the assailant, deserve better.

— Kevin Vuong is the former Member of Parliament for Toronto’s Spadina-Fort York. The son of refugees, he continues his public service as a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and as a naval reserve officer.

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