You Think You Got It Bad?

If The Ontario HRC Won't Get You the Ontario College of Teachers Might

My wife was a teacher in the Ontario school system for many years, and she still gets the publication of the Ontario College of Teachers every month, called "professionally speaking". It's cool to use lower case in your title.

They have their own Discipline Committee, a 3 member panel, kind of like a Tribunal to "conduct public hearings into cases of alleged incompetence or professional misconduct."

It says in the magazine that "If found guilty of professional misconduct or incompetence, a member's certificate may be revoked, suspended or limited. In cases of professional misconduct only, the committee may also reprimand, admonish, or counsel the member, impose a fine, publish its order in Professionally Speaking or order the member to pay costs."

Have any of you ever come across a really incompetent teacher that you wanted to either kick their rosy red ??? across the street, or do something? Well, maybe you can contact the OCT about them. Go to their web site at oct.ca and see if you can. I don't know. You can try emailing them at info@oct.ca.

On the other hand, you all know a teacher who busts his or her hump to make learning fun and good for the kids. Maybe you could contact them about him or her too. Hopefully, you'll send more good news stories than bad news stories.

However, that is not my point. Like any well meaning tribunal with more power and interest in political correctness than makes sense to thinking people, they carry on with their task. They unfortunately have to adjudicate some pretty egregious behaviour, but not always.

Here is a case in point, and fortunately for the teacher involved, his name was left out of the report in the magazine. The man in question had been a teacher for 29 years. The good news for him is that after this nonsense, he is probably close to the retirement 85 factor (you can retire as a teacher in Ontario when your age and years of teaching total 85).

He coaches sports and committed the following very serious offences (not in my opinion):
1) brushed his foot against the buttocks of a girl during a basketball practice, probably to get her to go where he wanted her to.
2) tousled a young boy's hair during a baseball game
3) put his hand on the shoulder of a female student while discussing a detention with her.
and 4) touched the back of a young girl during a dance practice to place her on her mark.

He was reprimanded, and required to take a course on appropriate boundaries and boundary violations.

In 29 years of exemplary conduct, this is what they zapped this poor guy for, basically for caring about the kids, and trying to reach them.

If Barbara Hall had gotten this at the Ontario HRC, she could have spent a lot of tax dollars fixing this guy's little red wagon. If she gets wind of it now, she will probably try to set up a mechanism that allows her to Appeal OCT tribunal decisions to the OHRC, so she can get her pound of flesh out of them. Actually, I see a new special project for Barb's Boys coming here. Better zip it.