A B.C. high school principal has been suspended three days for professional misconduct after he failed to inform a student’s parents about a complaint alleging inappropriate touching by a teacher.
Neither the school nor the principal were identified in a decision posted this week by the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation.
The student complained to the principal in the morning, saying a teacher had touched the student inappropriately.
The student also wanted out of the teacher’s class, according to the decision.
The student also wanted the principal to tell his/her parents what had occurred. However, the principal doubted the credibility of the student’s complaint and did not remove the student from the class.
The principal did not contact the student’s mother until 3:30 p.m. that day to let her know about the complaint, according to an agreed statement of facts.
The report says the student’s mother missed the call, and was not prepared to properly support the student at the end of the school day.
In determining that a three-day suspension was an appropriate consequence, the commissioner took into consideration that the principal failed to adequately protect the student from emotional and physical harm and that he made an assumption about the student’s credibility that affected his judgment.
