Article content

The Toronto District School Board’s panicked handling of a fight between two Grade 7 students has left their school, so good it’s known internationally as the public equivalent of a posh private school, near ruin.

At last count, eight school staff — senior administrators and teachers — at Glenview Senior Public School have been put on “home assignment” or “administrative leave,” interchangeable terms the school board uses for temporary paid suspensions.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Christie Blatchford: Panicked reaction to students' fight leaves 14 staffers off the job at Toronto school Back to video

An additional six staff are on personal or stress leave.

TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird confirmed the numbers this week.

The suspensions came about either directly as a result of the fight itself or indirectly because, in the wake of the suspensions of the principal and vice-principal, the school was essentially left rudderless for the final two months of the academic year.

With a rotating cast of principals and other administrators temporarily at the helm, the favoured option for resolving conflicts between students and those between parents and staff quickly became “sentence first, verdict afterwards” in the infamous language of Alice in Wonderland.