Posh school gags staff after firing

FComment raser Academy, the expensive Vancouver private school where last month a teacher was fired after making allegedly “triggering” remarks to students in a Grade 12 law class, has put its staff under a gag order.

Maureen Steltman, the school head, told Postmedia in a brief emailed statement the school “does not comment on personnel issues, even when we take issue with public inaccuracies.”

She emphasized that “no teacher is ever removed from the classroom based on the words or actions of a single student.”

The school, which specializes in teaching students with language-based learning disabilities, also quietly dispatched a public relations operative to approach Postmedia only on an off-the-record basis.

But Postmedia has since interviewed four other exemployees of the small school.

They say there is no due process and no recourse for teachers who find themselves in trouble with what they claim is a querulous, autocratic and unpredictable administration.

One former staffer learned of the Nov. 24 incident that led to the teacher’s dismissal from a Fraser student who was in the classroom when it happened.

According to that former staffer, “X (the student) told me about it on the day it happened. X said (the teacher) said something about abortion, a bunch of girls were ‘triggered’ by it, and one was crying,” the former teacher said.

The 44-year-old teacher who was dismissed Nov. 30 told Postmedia that he was trying to illustrate how an individual’s sense of what’s right or wrong may be different from the law.

Some people may hold more liberal or conservative views that differ from the law, he said, and told the class that, for instance, he believes abortion is wrong, “but the law is often different from our personal opinions.”

Shortly after, the students had a brief break and when it was over, some didn’t return, among them a popular young woman who went to an administrator to complain that she had been “triggered” by the remark and now felt “unsafe.”

With another teacher at her side for support, the student then confronted the offending teacher and demanded an apology.

Over the ensuing few days, the teacher was removed from the class, and invited back in only to be confronted again by the student. This time he apologized, but managed to offend her anew, and the next day was told he “couldn’t continue in the classroom.”

Allan Klassen, who spent almost 16 years at Fraser in a variety of teaching and administrative roles until he left in the fall of 2015, told Postmedia “The school has no HR representative, no union, no recourse for any staff member who feels they are treated unfairly”, and that “any staff member knows that if they try to take them on in court, it will be a long drawn-out battle that is far too expensive and emotionally draining … Maureen Steltman loves to fight and she doesn’t have to pay her court costs.”

He left, of his own volition, after he says he suddenly fell out of favour, and went from Four ex-employees say there is no due process for teachers who cross what they say is an unpredictable administration at Vancouver’s exclusive Fraser Academy. getting twice-annual bonuses and raises to being asked to complete a “performance improvement plan.” He said he felt on the brink of being fired and didn’t have the heart to battle.

Klassen was much loved at the school, the other former teachers say. He now works in the public system in Vancouver. Another of the former staffers, Renee Michaud, had to battle to clear her name after she was abruptly terminated a day before her threemonth probationary period ended.

She spent seven months to do just that, she said in a phone interview Friday, after the school reported her to the B.C. Teacher Regulation Branch for an “inappropriate student-teacher relationship”.

But nothing of the sort happened: Rather, she said, a student had confided in her about doubts over her sexual orientation, and when Michaud asked for advice from a school counsellor, she was told to keep the matter strictly confidential.

Michaud began asking questions then — why the student’s parents weren’t informed about her difficulty and why the school wasn’t doing more to help the girl.

And then, though Michaud was the student’s only confidante, she was ordered to cut contact with her.

“It is my job to support my students,” the former staffer said. “That is our job, more than any math test.”

A short time after, like the teacher dismissed last month, Michaud was suddenly pulled out of class, dismissed and marched out of the building in the Kitsilano area of Vancouver.

“I was one of three teachers fired that year,” she told Postmedia.

Michaud and other former Fraser teachers mentioned the four-day “bonding” excursion held every fall at Camp Malibu, a remote luxury lodge on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast. Several said the enforced closeness, with students and staff spending so much time together, made for a bizarre experience.

Another ex-staffer, who was at Fraser for almost 15 years, says he fell out of favour after he didn’t go to the school Christmas party and went out to eat on his own after the post-parent-teacher night pizza party.

“I was asked to leave,” he told Postmedia.

For years, he had been pushing the idea of a “staff representative” — a position that would be largely symbolic in a non-union environment — but got nowhere.

“The biggest issue here,” he said, “is that there are no checks and balances” on senior administration. “You can get fired for just about anything.”

As for the teacher who was dismissed last month, he received a notice this week from the Teacher Regulation Branch, telling him the Fraser Academy has “provided a report about your conduct.”

He is so crushed and distraught, he said, he may voluntarily surrender his teaching certificate.