A B.C. teacher who also served as a counsellor was suspended for a day with some additional consequences for not reporting sexual assault and a few other concerns.
A report was made to the British Columbia Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, and the Commissioner’s office responded to the complaint with a judgment, and also outlined the infractions that were reported.
During the infractions, the counsellor/teacher, Cinderella Winter, was working at School District No. 37, which covers Kamloops and Thompson.
On January 6, during the 2022/2023 school year, two students came to see Winter when she was a counsellor. Student A was upset about something that Student C did. Student B, who the reports state was Indigenous, came along to support Student A. During the conversation, Student B said that they were sexually assaulted by Student C.
The report states that Winter incorrectly assumed that the sexual assault disclosed by Student B had been reported and dealt with in the past.
Winter did not report the sexual assault that was disclosed to her to a school administrator or Student B’s parents, contrary to the school district’s policies. The next month, Winter was issued a letter of discipline, and she offered to meet with Student B and Student B’s family in a “restitution circle.”
Later that year, in June, a couple of other incidents occurred when Winter was working as an on-call Grade 8 Social Studies teacher.
At some point, Winter told students to put their phones away, advising them not to put them near their “reproductive zones.”
She went on to say that studies suggested that cellphone radiation could affect students’ abilities to have children and could lead to congenital disorders.
Winter said, “If you don’t want to potentially be wiping your child’s bum for the rest of its life, you may want to think about making a habit of not keeping electronics in the ‘reproductive zone.'”
Two students chimed in, sharing that they felt that phones didn’t have enough energy to cause harm.
Winter referenced a viral hoax, telling students she witnessed a popcorn kernel pop when placed between two cell phones. She said that her claim was based on a video she had seen.
At least one student reported that her findings sounded strange.
Later, Winter gave a slide presentation, and there were 35 minutes left over in class. Students told Winter that their teacher would allow them to play games on the classroom computers if they had spare time. During that time, she periodically used the classroom teacher’s computer to shop for firewood hot tubs.
The report said the computer was set to screen sharing, so her firewood hot tub shopping was “projected onto the large screen for the whole class to see.”
Winter was suspended for one day without pay. She served her suspension in October 2023.
In March 2025, Winter retired from the district.
This month, Winter had agreed to and has now served a five-day suspension of her certificate.