The Alberta Teachers’ Association is urging its 46,000 members to get ready for a “vigilant defense of public education like they have not seen before” in a battle against the UCP..Education Minister Adriana LaGrange announced Thursday she is taking steps to remove teacher disciplinary actions away from the ATA..The move comes after it was revealed the ATA knew about Michael Gregory, a Calgary teacher who was charged with sexually assaulting six girls who’d been students at John Ware junior high between 1986 to 2006..The ATA didn’t inform the province of the charges and LaGrange said that won’t happen again..“The MLA for Red Deer-North was handed a golden opportunity to lead one of the world’s top-performing jurisdictions when it comes to K–12 education. Instead of supporting it and fostering it, she has delivered nonstop attacks intended to weaken and destabilize it,” said A.TA President Jason Schilling..“Debilitating funding cuts, a completely disastrous curriculum and a COVID-19 response that was completely negligent in protecting Alberta families have driven our education system to the point of crisis. But, if the minister follows through with her destructive plan to splinter the teaching profession, Alberta’s public education system will crater.”.He said LaGrange is spinning a 15-year-old discipline case as cover for the “vindictive attack” on teachers..“In this case, only one party did the job it was supposed to do, and that was the Alberta Teachers’ Association. As a result of our processes, this teacher was removed from the profession and never taught again,” Schilling said..Schilling said the government itself failed to report the case to police when it received the report of the teacher’s conviction of unprofessional conduct in an ATA disciplinary hearing..“This is why teachers and an increasing number of ordinary Albertans just have no trust in this minister and the government’s agenda for education,” he said..LaGrange said she will bring forward an order-in-council to require the ATA notify the registrar at Alberta Education of all complaints about their members when they are received. .“Currently, the ATA is only required to notify Alberta Education at the end of their disciplinary process if a matter goes to a hearing, including cases where recommendations are made to the minister to suspend or cancel a certificate,” said Lagrange..The minister also pledged to bring in legislation in the spring to separate the teacher disciplinary process from the ATA’s mandate and functions..“It is now abundantly clear the ATA can no longer act as the investigator and the prosecutor for complaints against its members. This obvious conflict of interest has made Alberta an outlier. All other provinces and territories follow either an arm’s-length or government-operated model for teacher discipline,” said LaGrange..“I cannot change the past, nor can I take away the pain survivors live with every single day. However, as the minister of Education, I consider it my moral obligation to do everything in my power to fix the broken system that has let our children and their families down for so long.”.A $40-million lawsuit has been filed against the Calgary Board of Education over the incident..Gregory killed himself after the charges were laid.
