How many times has a journalist told us that a teacher, school principal or psychoeducator invited to comment on a problem in his school refused to give him an interview for fear of reprisals from his employer? ?
Posted at 2:00 p.m.
The teacher Kathya Dufault had not been afraid to meet Patrick Lagacé: she was forced to resign following the publication of his remarks in The Press in 2018. It made an impression.
Over the past few days, two journalists who know the world of education well have not been able to have an interview with Michel Stringer, the teacher who suffers from pulmonary fibrosis and who is immunosuppressed. Despite the advice of his doctor, he cannot return to teach, because the Center de services scolaire de Montréal (CSS) refuses the reasonable accommodations requested by his doctor: an air purifier, plexiglass in his classroom and the wearing of masks. N95.
The management refuses that a teacher capable of teaching teaches, whereas there is a shortage of teachers.
However, the Commission des droits et libertés de la personne et de la jeunesse recognizes the right of employees to obtain reasonable accommodation based on their health and the context of their work.
Is the omerta that rages in the school environment the result of ignorance of the law by CSS employees and employers or is it a fear created and maintained by the school administration? Instead, school personnel should be encouraged by their employer and their union to put forward their point of view in the public arena as education professionals and as citizens, because education concerns us all.
Duty of reserve and loyalty, what are we talking about?
Article 2088 of the Civil Code of Quebec specifies that ” [l]he employee, in addition to being required to perform his work with prudence and diligence, must act with loyalty and not make use of the confidential information he obtains in the performance or on the occasion of his work “. The employee must avoid causing harm to the employer by favoring his own interests.
Also, when a teacher informs a journalist of a serious problem that concerns the mission of the school or the well-being of the people who are there with the aim of improving the situation, this without revealing confidential information (on his students, their parents, his colleges, his management), it should be recognized that he or she is exercising a right listed in the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and in no way contravenes this article of the Civil Code.
Unfortunately, a deleterious current of case law allows the CSS to sanction, in the name of a breach of a very broad conception of the obligation of loyalty, school staff who denounce the existence of such problems.
Still less democracy in public institutions
All the school boards were not examples of democratic institutions, but the mode of governance adopted by the CSS, under the CAQ, does not make them more democratic institutions, far from it. As mentioned by journalist Louise Leduc who investigates the chaotic return to school1, neither the school administration nor the CSS agrees to speak to him. The population therefore has no right to know what is going on there.
It is time to lead a public debate on the omerta imposed without justification on school staff, one of the effects of the new management of the school system. The school should be the place for the personal and collective development and emancipation of all students and staff.