You make the call
This edition of You Make the Call features a teacher who requested accommodation for a hypersensitivity to electronic equipment.
The teacher was employed with the Edmonton Public School Board. In 2010, when her daughter attended one of the board’s schools, she raised concerns about radiofrequency (RF) and electro-magnetic (EM) radiation in schools. Over the next few years, she discussed the matter with school officials, the school superintendent, board trustees, and the Alberta Minister of Education and requested that WiFi not be installed in schools. She believed that RF and EM emissions from WiFi networks and computers could cause serious health problems.
However, the board continued to install WiFi in its schools. The teacher asked the superintendent in January 2013 to pause the installation of WiFi routers in schools, but the superintendent replied that it had received advice from Alberta Education, Alberta Health, Health Canada, and the World Health Organization that there was no threat to student health from WiFi signals. The superintendent also noted that WiFi was more cost-effective than physical connections for every computer and students depended on it to compete their work.
From 2012 to 2014, the board issued several verbal and written warnings to the teacher because she was using her position and school resources for her anti-WiFi efforts. She was warned to keep her role as a parent and community activist separate from her role as a teacher.
In January 2014, the teacher was teaching kindergarten when she informed the school board that she had personal health concerns related to RF and EM radiation. She provided a note from her family physician stating that “she reports that when she wears an FM transmitter/microphones she develops headaches and other symptoms” and her use of those devices should be limited “if possible.”
In September 2015, the teacher provided another note from her physician saying that she had been diagnosed with as she had Electro Hypersensitivity Syndrome (EHS) and the WiFi in her classroom should be turned off. However, many of the students used Chromebook computers, which required WiFi connectivity.
The board agreed to consider turning off the router in her classroom and replacing her FM voice amplifier with a wired microphone, but it would depend on the impact to the learning environment. After months of research, the board determined that removing the wireless access point would hinder performance of the students’ computers as well as those in other classrooms with access points for which the students’ computers would search. It also determined that the removal of WiFi from her classroom wouldn’t significantly reduce the exposure to EM fields from sources all over the school and outside, including the students’ computers themselves and lightbulbs on the ceiling.
Two months later, the teacher submitted another note recommending that the router in her classroom be disable and replace the Chromebooks with wired computers. The board refused for the same reasons as before.
In December 2016, the teacher once again requested the removal of the router in her classroom, as students in her new class didn’t use Chromebooks. The school board again refused.
The teacher filed a human rights complaint, claiming that her EHS was a physical disability and the school board was obligated to accommodate her disability needs.
You Make the Call
Did the school board fail to live up to its duty to accommodate?
OR
Did the school board handle the situation appropriately?
IF YOU SAID the school board handled things appropriately, you’re right. A human rights officer found that the school board adequately considered the accommodation request and it reasonably determined that disabling the WiFi router in the teacher’s classroom would have a negative impact on the students and the learning environment that outweighed any benefits.
The teacher requested a review of the decision with the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal, reiterating that EHS has been accepted as a disability by the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the school board had a duty to accommodate. However, the tribunal agreed with the original decision, finding that there was insufficient information to established that the accommodation she was seeking would address her disability-related needs.
All of the sources that the school board consulted indicated that the medical and scientific evidence “does not support a causal link with low levels of RF and EM emissions.” There were also suggestions that symptoms could be related to other sources and not RF and EM exposure as well as the possibility that it wasn’t a “single medical problem.”
The tribunal found that “EHS is characterized by a variety of non-specific symptoms that differ from individual to individual” and, while real and potentially disabling, the condition had “no clear diagnostic criteria and there is no scientific basis to link EHS symptoms to EMF exposure,” said the tribunal in finding that the school board’s duty to accommodate was not engaged.
For more information, see:
- Kliparchuk v. Edmonton Public School Board, 2021 AHRC 178 (Alta. Human Rights Trib.).
