Alberta moves to take teacher disciplinary process away from union and set up arm’s-length commissioner

EDMONTON—In the wake of allegations that one teacher abused scores of students during his career—and revelations that police were not notified of separate professional sanctions against him—Alberta will move to overhaul its teacher-disciplinary system by pulling it from the provincial teachers’ association and setting up an arms-length commissioner instead.

The plan to yank the discipline process from the Alberta Teachers’ Association — a union representing more than 40,000 members in the province — was announced late last year and sparked fierce backlash from the organization.

During an interview with the Star, Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange said she looked across Canada at how most other provinces had arms-length or independent processes for teacher discipline.

“It’s really taking the best of everything that we’ve seen across Canada and incorporating it into a process so we will have one teacher profession and one teaching profession discipline process,” she said.

LaGrange said there was consultation done with the ATA but still, she anticipates that “they’re not going to be happy” about the change.

“It has been obvious to me since I took office in 2019 that the ATA is more focused on their… role as a union versus their role as a professional organization, they always have come across that way,” LaGrange said.

The new Alberta Teaching Profession Commissioner would oversee all teacher discipline in the province, including teachers in the ATA, independent schools, public charter schools, First Nations schools or early childhood service programs established under the Education Act.

It would also oversee all teacher leaders (such as principals), including those who are members of the College of Alberta School Superintendents.

Under the new system, the commissioner would review and investigate matters of professional incompetence or misconduct after complaints had been submitted to the Government of Alberta Education’s Registrar. There would be no statute of limitations on complaints of unprofessional conduct, while complaints of professional incompetence could be submitted within two years after the incident allegedly occurred.

The commissioner could then dismiss a complaint, recommend a penalty under an expedited process for particularly egregious or Criminal Code matters, enter into a consent-resolution agreement, enter a dispute resolution process, consider mediation, or refer the matter to a hearing.

If a complaint goes to a hearing, then a committee of teachers and other members of the public will be struck to oversee it. Hearings and appeals will be public, and any finding of unprofessional misconduct or professional incompetence would be released as well.

The minister of education will have a final say on the case and could issue a letter of reprimand or suspend or cancel the teacher’s certificate.

Alberta has previously moved to set up an online registry where disciplinary decisions will be made publicly available and LaGrange is working with other education ministers in Canada to make disciplinary findings more accessible across provincial lines.

The proposed move is being made under Bill 15, the Education (Reforming Teaching Profession Discipline) Amendment Act, which was introduced on Thursday.

Alberta’s current system is relatively unique in that the ATA oversees both collective bargaining for teachers as well as discipline. Other provinces, like Ontario, have a professional college that oversees teachers’ misconduct, or they use a commissioner model, as Alberta has proposed, at arms-length from the government.

“Really, we’re looking to improve accountability (and) have an open, transparent process which every teacher and teacher leader will be governed by,” said LaGrange. “We will take away the ability for perceived bias or actual bias to occur by the teachers’ union.”

LaGrange announced the intention to yank the disciplinary process from the ATA late last year after it came to light that the association had not notified police in 2006 about abuse carried out by a Calgary teacher. The Education Ministry also knew of the misconduct carried out by the teacher after it was informed by the ATA about the misconduct-hearing findings, but the ministry likewise did not notify police.

That teacher, Michael Gregory, was accused of physically and sexually abusing an unknown number of students over a nearly 20-year teaching career. He killed himself last year after being charged with 17 counts of sex-related criminal offenses.

Bill 15 also brings in new requirements for those involved in the education system to report serious harm or threats to student safety to police.

It also brings in a single code of conduct for all teachers in the province as opposed to the current model which has separate, but similar, codes for members of the ATA and those who are not members of the association.

The ATA has said that the disciplinary process worked in the case of Gregory and that the sex-related criminal charges he later faced were not allegations that were part of the 2006 disciplinary hearing. He had his teaching certificate suspended for two years and never returned to the profession after he left in 2006.

The union has said the proposed change from the minister amounted to an attack on teachers in Alberta which could destabilize the profession.

Still, the Gregory case sparked a class-action lawsuit last year which names his estate and the Calgary Board of Education as defendants.