Ontario teacher’s suspension quashed for student leaving classroom

An Ontario early childhood educator should not have been suspended after a student slipped away from her class, an arbitrator has ruled.

The worker was a designated early childhood educator (DECE) for the Halton District School Board in Ontario. She moved to a new school to work in a kindergarten class for the 2016-17 school year and a close friend who had worked with the class previously told her about a student who had left the school on his own. This student wore an identification bracelet and the teacher’s supply binder had a safety plan for the student from the previous year. However, no one updated the plan with new contacts for the current year, discussed it with the worker, or indicated that the student was still a risk to leave school property. Her teaching partner only told her that the student should be placed at the front or the back of the line during transitions.

On Sept. 14, 2016 — the worker’s second week at the school — her teaching partner was off sick and an occasional teacher (OT) was brought in. At the end of the lunch recess, the worker, the OT and an educational assistant lined up the children and took attendance before going back into the classroom. The student in question was put at the back of the line and the OT situated herself near the student, with the educational assistant and her special-needs student behind them.

The worker counted the students after they entered the classroom and realized that the student in question was missing. Another student said that “he ran,” so she ran outside. She found the student with two women at a crosswalk and returned him to the school.

The worker deduced that the student must have left the line before he entered the classroom while she was facing the door counting students.

The worker was suspended without pay for one day for failing to adequately supervise the student and failing to inform the OT that the student was a flight risk. She suggested several changes including assigning the student to a class without an exterior door, installing an alarm on the door, and using walkie-talkies — the latter was part of the previous year’s safety plan but hadn’t been provided. She also said she had become more observant.

The teachers’ union grieved the worker’s suspension, arguing that the school board’s failure to update the safety plan or discuss the student with the worker were significant contributing factors to the incident.

The arbitrator noted that “maintaining proper supervision of kindergarten-age children is a fundamental element of the DECE’s (and the teacher’s) role.” However, it had been established in previous arbitration decisions that “not every employee mistake, failure or misadventure deserves or requires a disciplinary response.”

The arbitrator agreed that the worker hadn’t been formally updated on the safety plan, but based on what she already knew, she should have realized he was a risk and required more supervision. She did follow the practice of placing the student at the back of the line under the supervision of the OT and once the worker realized that the student was missing, she took immediate action, the arbitrator said.

The arbitrator also found that the worker shouldn’t be held accountable for not properly informing the OT about the student’s risk, since the administration didn’t do so for herself. In addition, she took it upon herself to be extra vigilant and made suggestions for improvements afterwards, demonstrating that she learned from the experience, said the arbitrator.

“Taking responsibility for something need not be synonymous with taking the blame, and in this case I find that the [worker] has done so in the more important sense of the word,” the arbitrator said in ordering the school board to rescind the suspension.