B.C. privacy laws prevent the public from seeing complaints about a Vancouver teacher disciplined for multiple infractions against students, the Vancouver School Board and the Ministry of Education say.
They said such a release would be harmful to the teacher’s privacy.
High school teacher Klaus Hardy Breslauer, who had suggested students whose families were from other countries should go back where they came from, was suspended for three days, B.C.’s Commissioner for Teacher Regulation Howard Kushner ordered May 26.
Kushner’s decision cited numerous allegations of unprofessional behaviour, including:
- telling a student whose father was from Iran that if he didn’t get good grades, he’d be sent out to minefields;
- told exchange students they should go back to working on rice farms;
- asked a student of Japanese descent if they were unable to answer a question because they watched too much hentai or anime pornography;
- told a student they should return to the Philippines if they weren’t willing to try;
- discussed his personal life, travel, gambling and sex life;
- posted a Facebook photo students saw of him and his wife apparently naked behind a newspaper;
- had more than 700 racist, homophobic and transphobic memes on his work computer, some of which were shared with students;
- told students who he believed had cheated on a test that they deserved to get a sexually transmitted diseases;
- told students their grades would mean they went to “loser Langara,” a reference to Vancouver’s Langara College;
- refused to allow a student to go to the bathroom, saying they couldn’t run away from life’s problems;
- in a science electricity experiment involving black rods, said boys are gifted at rubbing rods and he had a lot of experience doing so;
- was repeatedly rude and dismissive in communications with parents,’ and;
- allowed students to put their own comments in their reports cards about their work habits because he was too lazy to do so.
Under provincial access to information laws, Glacier Media requested all complaints about Breslauer to the district and the ministry.
The ministry withheld all records saying disclosure would be harmful to personal privacy under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
Citing the same section of the act, the school board said it, “is required to refuse to release records if their disclosure would give rise to an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy. Information about a person’s employment history is information that is presumed to give rise to an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy.”
jhainsworth@glaciermedia.ca
@Jhainswo
