Tag: #TRB

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Teacher’s Regulation Branch (TRB) Q & A

People often have a lot of questions about the TRB complaint process. I have formatted this blog as a question-and-answer (Q & A) page by taking the responses from the annual report 2024-2025.

Why do some complaints get posted publicly and some don’t?

From page 4:

“To begin with, not everything that may be the subject of discipline by an employer warrants intervention at the regulatory level. As Commissioner, I must take into account a number of factors in considering whether to take disciplinary action against a teacher. Among those considerations is the public interest. I generally do not consider it in the public interest to pursue disciplinary action in matters that do not in some way
directly impact the welfare of students, or significantly impact the reputation of the teaching profession. Matters such as abuse of sick leave or conflict between staff are generally better dealt with at the employer/employee level.


Furthermore, it is important to remember that the regulatory scheme does not hold teachers to a standard of perfection. As with us all, teachers have good days and bad days, and sometimes they make mistakes. Not all such mistakes warrant disciplinary action at the regulatory level. It is only where teachers’ actions rise to the level of a marked departure from what is expected of them that disciplinary action at the regulatory level will be taken.”

How do we know if their behaviour has been a marked departure?

From page 5

“When determining if a teacher’s behaviour amounts to misconduct or incompetence, the conduct is measured against established sets of regulatory standards. In the case of teachers holding a certificate of qualification, the
conduct is assessed against the Professional Standards for BC Educators as established by the British Columbia
Teachers’ Council under the Teachers Act “

How do you file a complaint against a Teacher in BC? What are the stages?

When you first make a complaint by visiting this site Make a Teacher Complaint to the Commissioner your complaint will start with the Preliminary Review.

From page 6-7

  1. Intake
    * Filing the complaint

2. Preliminary Review

Each report or complaint that is submitted to me undergoes a preliminary review. During this process I
examine any material that accompanied the complaint or report, and any additional information that was
received by the PCU. The Teachers Act provides that I must determine whether:

  • the matter is not within my jurisdiction (for example,
    whether the matter relates to a current or previously
    certified teacher),
  • the matter is frivolous or made in bad faith,
  • the matter has no reasonable prospect of resulting
    in an adverse finding by a hearing panel,
  • it is in the public interest to take any further
    action, and
  • the matter has been pursued in a timely manner.
    .

3. Deferal?

4. Then the Commissioner may decide to investigate the complaint.

5. The Consent Resolution (which you will see posted publicly is in place of a hearing. To read more details of this whole complaint process, you can read page 6-7 of the annual report.

6. Hearing (very rare)

Are complaints increasing?

Yes. From page 3 “while complaints from the public remain stable, reports are up from 175 to 201”

That means school districts are filing more reports on their staff.

What is the criteria for the school to report a teacher?

From page 5

“Legally, school employers must make a report to me when a teacher has been suspended, disciplined for serious misconduct or dismissed. If a teacher resigns, the superintendent or independent school principal must report the circumstances if it is in the public interest to do so. In addition, the superintendent or independent school principal must make a report, if it is in the public interest, when a teacher’s conduct or competence is considered to be in breach of the applicable standards.”

Can a teacher have a complaint filed against them for not following an IEP?

Yes. From page 14, you can see that 16 complaints/reports were filed for “Failure to follow Individual Education Plans or Failure to create an inclusive learning environment.”

Can I file a complaint against my child’s principal?

Yes. From page 5 in large font, “In this report, the term “teacher” refers to an individual who holds a Certificate
of Qualification, a Letter of Permission or an Independent School Teaching Certificate. “Teacher” includes superintendents, principals, vice-principals, and classroom teachers.”

*********

Here is the annual TRB report for 2024-25

You can read about the statistics of how many complaints were filed, how many reached a consent resolution and more and all the different categories of complaints that they fall into. I find this to be very interesting information.

This annual report is also listed with other annual reports I keep track of on my Annual Report page.

Here is the link to access the discipline database and see discipline outcomes.

To learn some tips and important information of lived experience before you file, see my TRB page.

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Access to Information in Education – Privacy Rights

Parents in BC are restricted to information that other parents have access to in other provinces in Canada.

Two examples:

  1. Legal fees for human rights complaints
  2. Teachers’ Regulation Branch (TRB) – Ministry of Education
    .

Legal Fees

Parents of Carter Churchill won a human rights complaint against the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District (full Case here). They submitted an Freedom of Information request (FOI) and they got the complete breakdown of legal fees. It revealed what they spent their legal costs on to fight a 5-year old Deaf child from access an interpreter in kindergarten – $682 thousand dollars. Here is an article on it.

When I sent the exact same FOI request to my child’s district, I got S.14 – client privilege arguments. I filed an OIPC complaint and the OIPC backed them up. The districts arguments were that the breakdown would reveal legal communications. When I asked OIPC why I couldn’t access the same information that other parents could in another province I was told that the BC privacy laws are different in BC.

If you want to know the legal fees I recommend you go the route of filing an FOI with the Ministry of Finance. Ask for the total costs, not the break down. When you file the FOI tell them you are filing it under S.25 – public interest. If they fight you, you can offer up this case. Order 1728

Ok, now let’s talk about the TRB

Teacher’s Documents – TRB

In Ontario when parents file a complaint against a teacher, the teacher will respond to the complaint. The parents/caregivers get a copy of that. In BC, we do not. You will have no idea what the teacher submitted in their own defense or what they said. In my experience, it’s usually a pack of lies. If you file a FOI request you will get one piece of paper with a section written on it.

There is a new OIPC decision that outlines the legal arguments that BC has that keeps everything a teacher submits away from parental eyes. Order F26-10. The OIPC clearly does not want the Ministry of Education and Child Care filing a Judicial Review. While the parent is going to receive process documents, still nothing. Backed up by BC laws and an adjudicator who doesn’t think the public cares enough about education or the TRB. If anyone or organization wants to fight this, this decision is your stepping stone. It outlines all of the legal issues you are going to need to navigate. This is a stepping stone for anyone who wants to take this issue and elevate their fight.

In the meantime, we can use our knowledge of the system to get access to all of these documents in other ways. That way is the HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL. If a mediation meeting fails and you are continuing along in your complaint, you will reach a document disclosure stage. You can file a general application for documents. The school districts lawyers are going to try and persuade you of this. They will tell you that your request is “inappropriate” and send you to the TRB. (By the way – when they tell you what you are doing is inappropriate – you have hit a nerve. You are probably on the right track and they are very nervous about you continuing.) Do not believe them when they tell you to go to the TRB. They know it is a dead end. The evidence that I received getting documents from the TRB was fall of your chair, shocking evidence. Things I wasn’t even expecting or would have thought to ask for. I filed on a group of people and they ended up trying to blame the other person, submitting evidence that the other person was guilty. Beautiful! Thank you very much for that. So, they feel very safe that their documents are going to be protected. Use their false sense of safety. If the lawyers are offering you a settlement agreement you can’t live with, you can let them know that you will be filing an application for TRB documents. You can use the arguments of relevance and credibility of a future witness.

Remember that school districts will never just lay out all of the evidence you need due to their goals of reducing their liability. Also, if you want to ponder over who has all the decision making power in this process, here is blog about this question, the riddle of who is Wizard of Oz pulling all the strings.

Conclusion

BC’s privacy laws are stricter in BC, or the organizations in BC just don’t have a backbone to go up against the government. Either way… not so great for us. But we can use another routes through the maze to get what we want. The more you know about how to navigate all of the external complaint systems, the further you will get.

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Systemic Imperfection

Our systems, organizations, politics, cities, committees, boards, non-profit organizations, and every other team effort is not perfect.

There are gaps and administrative unfairness in every single system. If you ever want to understand why our systems are the way they are, read policy books from Deborah Stone (Eg. Policy Paradox” The Art of Political Decision Making) and you’ll understand how strategic this is from a political point of view. The division of resources is certainly not by accident.

Then focus on the next layer: the individuals.

Humans also work on these teams and people make mistakes. We are not a perfect species by any measuring yardstick. We are flawed and we are constantly learning and growing. We have our own trauma, imperfect childhoods, different brain structures and chemical exchanges, different age development stages, different frameworks within how we see the world, and temporary feelings rising and falling in the mix of every single day. Throw in some egos, status, hierarchy, culture, gender expectations, and all social constructions into the constant movement of social interactions. It can be messy. Let’s say that. I am impressed we are able to communicate and work as well as we do.

If we wait for systems and people to be perfect before we enter them or interact with them, we will be dead before that ever happens.

Our external complaint systems are not perfect.

But, they are all we have.

If we stop engaging with them, filing complaints, we are screwed.

External complaint systems are the only source of outside eyes looking into the school system. They are the only hope at accountability and transparency. No one else has access. No other outside organizations can force them to hand over documents or force them testify. If the school districts didn’t know they existed and didn’t think parents would use them, it would be a free for all. They would be untouchable. I have seen what happens when school employees think they are untouchable. It’s bad.

There would be no OIPC for access to information. There would be no Ombudsperson connected to policy and fairness. There would be no regulatory body for teachers and teacher standards to use. We would have no way to enforce human rights and force schools to provide our kids support. No one to force them to have to justify their actions. No one else is watching. But parents are.

Is everyone’s complaint going to be successful? No. It’s not. There is common sense and then there is the limitations of law and process, with cut off dates and made up rules of trying to put a human experience into a box.

But this is how we push the line. This is how we create human rights law (BC HRT), school policy (through settlement agreements), consent resolutions (TRB complaints), orders (OIPC decisions), directions (Ombudsperson decisions and case summaries), that create tools for change. Parents can actually create these tools to pick at the system by their complaint filing and settlements.

Why on earth this immense responsibility for parents to be THE accountability system is BEYOND me.

So until the government system decides an alternative option to help us in this matter, we are on our own. (Some people think school trustees are this alternative option, but some parents feel that school trustees are just upholding the system and colluding with districts.) I don’t even know if school trustees see themselves as an accountability system to the public. Do they? I know some do… but as a whole?

Parents are powerful. The school system doesn’t want you to know this. They want you to be scared. Fearful of making decisions. Fearful of stepping out of line… and dare I say… being a trouble maker???

I don’t suggest to people that they kill a fly with a house and just start filing complaints over every issue. A lot of the time things can be resolved through internal advocacy going all the way up the chain. It’s more collaborative and can be quicker.

BUT.

If you feel like you are a hamster on a wheel and going absolutely no where. If you think they are not motivated to resolve the issues and are just using delay tactics.

Then something to keep in your back pocket….is the external complaint system.

As we navigate external complaint systems or contemplate entering them, a VERY important truth to understand is liability in education.

Every time we file a complaint, we create data. If government systems don’t hear from parents they think everything is hunky-dory. It also forces the schools to be transparent with these external complaint systems and be examined. If they feel like at any moment they are going to have to justify their decisions, they won’t feel like they can get away with stuff in the same way, right from the beginning.

Knowing that they may have to justify their decisions WITH EVIDENCE in front of the tribunal encourages them to want to limit their damage period.

Bellow are some of the decisions that parents have created through filing complaints. I have created a DECISIONS FOR ADVOCACY page under the Education Law tab. We can use these decisions in our advocacy if required. Click the button below.

Thank you parents/caregivers!! Inch by inch, we are making progress. Now we need to take these decisions and use them as our tools. For all of the areas that we still need decisions in, we still have work to do.

Decisions for Advocacy