EDMONTON — Social media influencer Lawrence Magee is defending his recently announced "Report Teachers" website, claiming that the initiative is motivated by accountability and keeping ideology out of Alberta schools, and that information from individual reports will not be released publicly. "What I say to that is, don't break the rules of Bill 25 if you don't want your things to be reported," said Magee, Berta Proud Dad, in an interview with the Western Standard. Magee and his group recently announced plans to launch an independent initiative that will allow parents to report situations where teachers are violating Alberta's classroom neutrality regulations, which will then be reviewed and passed along to Alberta's education ministry. "This website is fully geared to the teachers that have become little activists in our school districts, and they're trying to create little activists in the schools," Magee said in an interview with the Western Standard on Monday. "This is a message for them that parents are fed up." .The initiative has been met with mixed reactions online, with many parents and others applauding the efforts, while critics have voiced concerns. Alberta Teachers' Association president Jason Schilling released a statement on Wednesday about the situation, accusing Magee of seeking to create a list of teachers he can curate, share, dox, and shame. "Let us be perfectly clear: there are already established professional processes for addressing concerns about teacher conduct," wrote Schilling. "School boards and the Alberta Teaching Profession Commission, not online influencers, have the authority and responsibility to deal with matters involving teachers who fail to meet the expectations set out in the Code of Professional Conduct and the Teaching Quality Standard.""That is how accountability works. It is based on evidence, due process and established standards, not on the personal opinions of someone seeking clicks, likes, views and online attention.".Magee called Schilling's statement unprofessional and said there is a professional process but no accountability. "We've heard from parents who have tried to talk to their teachers and their school principals, and tried using the government reporting service, and they've heard nothing from it," Magee said. "There's been no actionable items that have happened, so we feel, as a coalition of parents, that we'll be able to hold government accountable as well as the Alberta Teachers' Association." Schilling is not alone, though, as other individuals have expressed privacy concerns. "Words have consequences," Schilling wrote. "Online attacks can create an environment in which harassment is normalized. Our schools must be places where people are safe. We should never accept the opposite becoming the reality for teachers, school leaders or students." Though nothing can be 100% guaranteed, Magee said lawyers have confirmed that the initiative is legal, and he has pledged that incident-specific information will not be released publicly and that he will not create content based on individual reports. "What we can say is it would be awfully silly of us to go and use this information maliciously, because people will lose faith in the actual reporting system, and nobody will report," Magee said. "So we have a professional obligation to literally make sure that this is done ethically and by our code of conduct and standards, so people feel comfortable doing this." .Their professional obligations also include standards for protecting the initiative's integrity and ensuring the validity of allegations.Magee said only parents or legal guardians can file a report, and the process will require the filer to identify which section of Bill 25 the teacher violated and to provide proof of the allegations. However, despite Magee's reassurances, some individuals remain hesitant about the project given his "unapologetically conservative" mantra and prior experiences in which he has addressed individual incidents in schools. In response, Magee asserts that the initiative is not about politics, and that a teacher with five years of experience, a lawyer, and a member of the sexual minority community are working on it with him.
