Keeping Students Safe
The doctors' credo "first do no harm" should apply to schools as well, yet sometimes children are harmed in schools - by poor teaching techniques that blight their lives, by bullying, by environmental factors like mould or loud noise, by teachers who are sexual predators, and the list goes on. Well, now - at long last - the Ontario government has taken steps to reduce the harm done by teachers who are sexual predators. Click here for the relevant press release.
You may be surprised that some of these measures are not already in place - for example, automatic revocation of the certificates of convicted sexual predators? Resolve cases quickly? Telling school boards about teachers who may be threats to students? These things should have been implemented long ago.
But the biggie is this one - "Avoiding potential conflicts of interest by preventing union or association representatives from sitting on the college's council, where college policy is developed and approved". If it means what I think it means, namely keeping union reps off the Ontario Council of Teachers, this is huge. It was the main recommendation SQE made to former Justice Patrick LeSage in the course of his investigation into the College's investigation and discipline practices.
I anticipate that the teachers' unions will fight this measure tooth and nail since it appears to threaten their control of the College. If they don't fight it, then it must mean there's a work around available. Or else I'm missing something.




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