Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Island teacher who talked about killing Grade 8 students suspended for one day

A man working as a teacher on call in the Campbell River School District agreed to a one-day suspension of his certificate after comments he made about violent acts during and after a field trip on Nov. 6, 2018.
photo generic school zone sign
A man working as a teacher on call in the Campbell River School District agreed to a one-day suspension of his certificate after comments he made about violent acts during and after a field trip in 2018.

A man working as a teacher on call in the Campbell River School District agreed to a one-day suspension of his certificate after comments he made about violent acts during and after a field trip on Nov. 6, 2018.

Joshua Frederick Roland Laurin was with a Grade 8 class when he said he didn’t like his job or being around youth, and wanted to have a student beat two students to death and injure a third one, according to a consent resolution agreement between him and the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation.

He also said he would like to use a student to “whack” two others, the agreement said.

“After the field trip, when the students were back in their classroom, Laurin commented that if he was going to die the following day he would want to hurt students as he would not then get into any trouble,” the agreement said.

“Some students who heard these comments described them as ‘weird’ and reported feeling shocked by them, although they thought that Laurin was joking.”

Laurin was issued a letter of discipline on Nov. 8, 2018, by the school district and suspended from the teacher-on-call list Dec. 3-21, 2018. He was also required to take a Justice Institute of B.C. course called Reinforcing Professional Boundaries, which he completed in March 2019.

The school district made a report about Laurin to the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation on Jan. 8. 2019.

Laurin admitted in the ensuing agreement with the commissioner that what he said on the day of the field trip “constitutes professional misconduct.”

His one-day suspension, issued by the commissioner, was scheduled to take place Oct. 24.