School re-assigns teacher's classroom for air quality purposes
After a teacher complained about air quality issues, her employer decided to move the worker to a safer room. But the teacher felt the move was retaliation for her safety complaint and filed a complaint. Ultimately, the court sided with the employer.
In a Feb. 19, 2026 decision, Justice Joel Fichaud, writing for a unanimous Nova Scotia Court of Appeal panel, dismissed the teacher’s appeal and confirmed the Labour Board's dismissal of her reprisal complaint on three independent grounds.
Air quality complaint in school
The veteran English teacher at Dartmouth High School had raised concerns about elevated carbon dioxide levels in her classroom in late 2022. She reported the problem to her principal and the school's occupational health and safety committee, requesting air purifiers.
The school repaired the windows and commissioned an indoor air quality investigation.
On June 28, 2023, Principal Eartha Monard reassigned the teacher to a different classroom. Monard's affidavit described it as "an appropriate solution as it was substantially the same in size and quality to her current classroom assignment but had the benefit of windows facing an open area where air can flow more easily when opened."
The teacher, who had taught from Room 237 for 15 years, saw it differently. In her complaint, she wrote: “Room 237 is my safe space; it overlooks a beautiful garden courtyard; it's bright with good windows; it holds important memories as my career winds down; I appreciate it every day."
She alleged the move was punishment for raising safety concerns.
Classroom assignment ‘established’
A central question was whether a workspace assignment constituted a "term or condition of employment," giving the teacher a legal right to her room. The Labour Board ruled it did not.
The Court of Appeal found arguments against the board's reasoning persuasive but declined to act on them, as the other two grounds independently sustained the dismissal.
Neither the union nor the director could identify any provision in the teachers' collective agreement giving teachers the right to insist on a particular classroom. The board noted that collective agreements are "exhaustive recitations of the rights and obligations of the parties."
It also found no evidence that classroom assignment was a custom or practice "established and accepted by all," and the teacher’s own evidence confirmed there was "at least some history of rooms being re-assigned from time to time, even in the face of objection from the teacher affected."
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal recently ordered former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld to pay $750,000 to LGBTQ teachers after finding that dozens of his public statements opposing sexual orientation and gender identity resources in schools violated the Human Rights Code.
‘Legitimate business reason’
The Nova Scotia appeal also failed because the teacher had not completed the Act's mandatory three-step reporting process. Under s. 17(2)(c), an employee must escalate an unresolved safety concern to the OHS Division. She never did. The court found the teacher had "prevented the Act from operating as it was intended" and upheld the board's dismissal on that basis.
Separately, Principal Monard offered two legitimate reasons for the move: better airflow in Classroom 209, and the need to reduce long-running interpersonal conflict between the teacher and a colleague in the adjacent classroom — a tense relationship since 2018 that had involved the school's Respectful Workplace Consultant.
The board was unequivocal on the conflict point: "It is difficult to understand how an attempt by a supervisor to mitigate interpersonal tensions between two senior members of his or her organization could not be a legitimate business reason."
Justice Fichaud found no suggestion that Monard was motivated by animus: "The board found as a fact that these were the reasons for the move. Nowhere did the board suggest there were other reasons, or veiled reasons, or that Ms. Monard was motivated by animus toward [the teacher].
“In my view, a reasonable reading of the board's decision is that the two legitimate reasons were the 'sole' reasons."
