BC vice principal fired after forcing male students to prove they had underwear on

Oct 30 2019, 11:07 pm

A BC woman who worked as a vice principal in School District 93 was fired from her position after making boys in the school show her the bands of their underwear to prove that a soiled pair left in the bathroom didn’t belong to any of them.

According to a consent resolution agreement released this week by the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, the incident itself took place on June 19 of last year.

On that day, “a soiled pair of boys’ underwear was found on the lid of the toilet in the boys’ bathroom, with feces on the floor.”

The school’s principal was reportedly off-site at the time, and as a result, it was vice principal Delphine Yvette Andrée Guérineau who “stepped in to address the issue,” the document said.

According to the document, Guérineau wanted to identify the student responsible for the incident, and as part of her attempt to do so, an announcement was made over the school’s PA system that she would be visiting the classrooms of students in Grades 3 to 6, “to check if the boys were wearing underwear.”

This wasn’t an empty threat, and Guérineau did indeed enter each classroom, where she had each student show her the waistband of their underwear. She then had all male students in Grades 7 to 11 “assemble in a hallway so that she could confirm they were wearing underwear,” again, by having each student show her the waistband of their underwear.

Upon learning of the incident, the school district placed Guérineau on paid leave, pending the conclusion of the District’s investigation.

Then, on October 1, 2018, the District terminated her employment, with the retroactively applicable date of September 17, 2018.

According to the documents, Guérineau admitted that the conduct described in the case “constitutes professional misconduct,” and she agreed to a reprimand.

In determining an appropriate reprimand for the actions committed by Guérineau, the Commissioner wrote that a number of factors were considered.

This, the documents said, included things like the fact Guérineau “failed to give proper consideration to the consequences of her actions,” that her choices “had the potential to cause emotional harm to students,” that she had “failed to role model appropriate behaviour for an administrator,” and that she “acknowledged her reaction was inappropriate.”

The documents state that Guérineau agreed “not to make any statement… which contradicts, disputes, or calls into question the terms of this Agreement or the admissions made in it.”

A breach by Guérineau of any term in the agreement, the documents stated, “may constitute professional misconduct which may be the subject of separate discipline proceedings.”

Eric ZimmerEric Zimmer

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