Princess Margaret teacher suspended for 10 days over fire incident earlier this year

A Princess Margaret Secondary teacher was suspended for 10 days without pay for failing to be in her classroom when a fire broke out at the school earlier this year.

According to the B.C. Teachers’ Regulation Branch, Lori Lea Grant was teaching a planning 10 class on Jan. 19 when she decided to leave the class unattended.

She took two students from her class and another two students from study block with her. She drove the students in her vehicle to hang signs promoting an upcoming school musical. The group hung one sign off an overpass and went to another location to fix another sign.

She didn’t sign out herself or any of the students with her, and she didn’t notify anyone where she was going.

She also didn’t have permission to drive those students in her personal vehicle.

Grant was gone around 20 minutes. But in that time, a fire broke out at the school and students in her classroom had no teacher or supervision to help them evacuate the building.

When the principal asked teachers where they were during the fire, the report says, Grant wasn’t forthcoming about where she was. She indicated that she was in between classrooms at the time and didn’t see anyone in the hallway.

In February, the school district suspended Grant for 10 days without pay for her actions.

The district also directed her to comply with all policies and procedures, to never leave a classroom unsupervised, and to comply with all teacher standards set out by the regulation branch.

Grant accepted responsibility and signed a consent resolution agreement with the teacher regulator in June, agreeing to the reprimand.