St. Mike’s investigation up to eight incidents
School to review of its culture amid allegations of assault, sexual assault
A month after being rocked by allegations of assault and sexual assault, St. Michael’s College School announced Thursday who will be part of an independent committee looking into the school’s culture, as police revealed they are now investigating two additional incidents, bringing the total to eight.
The “respect and culture review” committee will look at social and cultural practices, and at the school’s policies, protocols and practices when it comes to addressing sexual, physical or verbal abuse and hazing.
“The important work of this committee — and its recommendations — will benefit both current and future students,” said Michael Forsayeth, chair of the board of directors at the prestigious all boys’ private school in Toronto. “This review is our board’s highest priority, reflecting our commitment to turn the pain of recent events into an opportunity for learning, healing and long-term change.” Committee members have no prior connection to the school and the final report is due in the summer. It will be chaired by Mark Sandler, a lawyer experienced in systemic reviews of this nature. And it will include Debra J. Pepler, a psychology professor at York University who researches aggression, bullying, and victimization involving children and adolescents; Bruce Rodrigues, a former Ontario deputy minister of education; and Priti Sachdeva, former legal counsel at the province’s Office of the Children’s Lawyer, which represents children in court cases. The announcement comes as Toronto police say they are now looking into eight incidents at the school.
Last month, six boys were charged with assault, gang sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon in an incident involving a young teen that allegedly took place in a locker room. The alleged assault was videotaped and shared on social media. In recent weeks, police had said they were investigating six incidents, including two alleged sexual assaults, three alleged assaults and one incident related to threatening.
On Thursday, Toronto police Const. Caroline de Kloet said the number of incidents they’re probing is eight. She did not release details about the two additional incidents.
In an interview with the Star, Sandler said he wanted to be part of the committee because of his experience on other independent reviews and feels it’s in the public interest to examine what transpired at St. Mike’s so it doesn’t happen again.
“These issues are not unique to a single school or a single institution,” he told the Star. “I would hope that anything that we have to say may well be beneficial to others who wrestle with the same kinds of issues.”
The committee set its own terms of reference, which stipulate that the report will be made public after it’s presented to the school’s board. Redactions will be made as necessary to protect student privacy. The committee hasn’t decided how far back the probe will go, but that will be one of the first things it determines, Sandler said.
Charles Pascal, professor at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, was “surprised and pleased,” by who was chosen to participate in the committee.
“Overall, I think the panel is a superb panel of experts with complementary experience,” said Pascal, a former Ontario deputy minister of education. “I have high hopes for a report that will be extremely thorough, and one that has very specific observations and recommendations.”
Making the report public is important so other schools can learn from what happened at St. Mike’s, a grades 7-12 school at Bathurst St. and St. Clair Ave. W.
“This is not an isolated situation regarding schools that do not have the kind of oversight and accountability that publicly-funded schools have,” he said. “They need to learn from it and others need to learn from it.”
In an interview with reporters, the school’s interim president, Fr. Andrew Leung, spoke of other key measures being undertaken at the school, such as cancelling the varsity basketball season for this school year and the junior and varsity football seasons for the 2019-2020 academic year.
“This was an incredibly hard decision, but necessary to show how serious we are about change,” he said, noting the “overall dynamics” on those teams contributed to the decision.
The reason those teams, specifically, were cancelled is because the school has learned of new incidents in the recent past, Leung said. Information about these new incidents were passed along to police. The school cannot confirm if these incidents are new for the police, or part of their ongoing investigation.
Leung said all 1,060 St. Mike’s students are taking workshops on building awareness and respect, coping and resilience and that the curriculum is being expanded to include topics such as healthy masculinities, gender norms, consent, using social media responsibly and appropriate bystander behaviour.
A website has been created where members of the community can provide feedback on improving school culture and anonymous reporting tools for students, including a voice-mail tip line and an app, have been created.
“My goal has been to understand the truth, even if it is hard to hear,” Leung said. “Only then can we move forward in a meaningful way.”