The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (CCCP) has released its latest report on child abuse in schools. Its findings are concerning.
Over the last four years, 252 current or former school personnel committed or were accused of committing, offences of a sexual nature involving children.
According to the report, the actual number of offenders is likely much higher since many provinces have only limited data available. That’s because not all provinces require public disclosure of teacher discipline decisions, and this means that the public only hears about teacher misconduct if a case goes to court.
The good news is that Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick do make teacher discipline cases public. Even better is the fact that two of these provinces, Alberta and New Brunswick, moved in this direction within the last couple of years. This indicates that provincial governments are feeling pressure to address this problem.
However, this still leaves many parents across the country in the dark. When the only way to find out about teacher misconduct is by reading about it in the media, there’s a serious lack of accountability.
Unfortunately, teachers’ unions have led the fight against making this information more easily available. For example, the Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS) has long resisted any attempt to publish the names of misbehaving teachers. According to MTS, the public should be satisfied with knowing that the most egregious cases will eventually head to court and be reported by the media.
The problem with this reassurance is it ignores the fact that most teacher misconduct cases never end up in court. A teacher who engages in inappropriate chats online with his students might not cross the threshold of criminal behaviour, but most parents would agree that this teacher does not belong in a classroom.
Because teachers work with vulnerable people, they must be held to a higher standard. The public has the right to know when teachers abuse their position of trust with students. They should not have to wait until formal criminal charges are laid.
In addition, other professions regularly publish the names of people found guilty of professional misconduct. As a case in point, doctors’ organizations in each province publish disciplinary decisions involving their members, as do provincial law societies. Being held accountable is part of working in a profession. Significant responsibility leads to a need for significant accountability.
The CCCP report contains several important recommendations. Perhaps the most obvious is that all provinces should establish fully independent bodies that receive complaints about teachers, conduct investigations, and determine appropriate sanctions for those found guilty. This could take the form of either a professional college of teachers or a separate provincial regulatory body.
Importantly, teachers’ unions must be kept at arm’s length from the decision-making process. This way they are free to advocate for the interests of their members.
In addition, the CCCP strongly recommends that disciplinary decisions be made universally available in all provinces. This means creating online registries that are easily searchable by name and offence. Anyone who wants to know whether a particular teacher has been found guilty of professional misconduct should be able to find that out without too much difficulty.
As for the argument that this would be a violation of privacy, the reality is that teachers must be held to a higher standard. Any teachers who do not want their names appearing in a disciplinary decision should avoid engaging in professional misconduct. There is no excuse for taking advantage of vulnerable students.
Obviously, since education is a provincial, rather than federal, responsibility, it would be difficult to create a national registry. However, as long as each province has a publicly searchable database of its disciplinary decisions, it should be easy to ensure that bad teachers do not escape accountability by moving to a different province.
Anyone who reads the CCCP report should agree that the current lack of accountability for misbehaving teachers is unacceptable. The vast majority of teachers perform their jobs well and look out for the best interests of their students. Thus, it is in the profession’s best interests that misbehaving teachers lose their teaching certificates.
Hopefully, provincial governments read the CCCP report carefully and take the necessary steps to protect both students and teachers.
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