Teacher declarations questioned

BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN

raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca

A 2006 Quebec government regulation asking school boards to have all teachers sign declaration forms about their judicial records has the president of the Lester B. Pearson Teachers' Union concerned about the board possibly probing too deep into their employees' past.

"Why do I need to declare even if I've had a driving infraction?" Serge Laurendeau asked during the board's monthly council of commissioners meeting last week.

The rule, adopted by the Quebec Ministry of Education, Sports and Leisure (MELS) two years ago, asks that all teachers submit any past infractions of either the criminal or penal code.

"For driving (infractions), it's a penal offence. If you kill someone while you're driving, you've also violated the criminal code," explained Patrick Glenn, a professor of law at McGill University.

According to France Goyette, the board's interim secretary-general, teachers are legally beholden to declare all infractions. "We have to ensure people who work with the students don't have a precedent that could put the students in danger."

As for driving infractions, that type of information might be relevant if a teacher has to drive students somewhere and may have had several driving problems in the past, she said.

"That you have to report all this, it's ridiculous," charged Laurendeau. He said declaring any past criminal offences is understandable, but the addition of penal offences, which may even include illegal parking or cutting down trees without a permit, is uncalled for. "I hope there will be another amendment to this law."

Goyette said all information about employees is verified by administrators at the school board and only that which is considered relevant to their jobs is kept in consideration.

"It is up to the school board to determine whether the infraction has any ties to the job," confirmed Stéphanie Tremblay, a spokesperson for MELS.

According to a MELS document about the Act to Amend the Education Act and the Act respecting private education, the law behind the judicial record declarations, Quebec's ministry of education has been concerned about this issue ever since a 2001 auditor-general's report found that "a number of school boards did not verify the judicial records of staff hired to work with students in school daycare centres." The document says the law applies to private schools too, and all precautions have been taken to ensure teachers' fundamental rights to privacy are respected by the declarations.

Glenn said it is common nowadays for companies to ask many questions to new employees about past judicial records. "It's on a need to know basis," he said of the types of questions asked, but employers are worried about hiring someone with a shady past and then being held accountable.

Though the Act was enforced in 2006, only now did Pearson start sending letters to teachers already on staff at the time. "We focused on the new hires as of September 2006," Goyette said.

The declaration forms came to the latter among several standard forms to be filled out upon employment rather than being sent out as a letter. She maintained Lester B. Pearson was one of the rare boards to respect the new law so quickly with regards to older staff. "We did send out 4,800 letters," she said.

At last week's meeting, retired teacher Chris Eustace said he had received the declaration form too, expressing concern that the board may not have updated its staff list. He suggested that even some widowers may accidentally receive forms.

"There's no question that our list is updated," countered Goyette, adding teachers that are deemed retired but may act as substitute teachers in the future still do have to fill out the declaration form, since they are considered "occasional employees."

Eustace was also concerned that the letter the form arrived in did not bear the name of a particular department at the Lester B. Pearson school board in its return address, meaning any employee may potentially open it and see confidential information.

"There are very, very strict instructions that all these letters are sent to the person in charge of the judicial records files," Goyette said.