Lockers in a school hallway/Shutterstock
A Vancouver Island teacher has been suspended after telling students he wanted to kill other Grade 8 students.
Joshua Frederick Roland Laurin was a Campbell River School District on-call teacher when he made the comments to a student on a November 2018 field trip.
“Laurin said he would like to use one of the students on the field trip to beat two other students to death and to injure a third one,” said B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation Howard Kushner’s Oct. 22 decision released Nov. 12.
“Laurin said that he wanted to use one of the students to “whack” two others,” Kushner said.
Back in the classroom, after the field trip, Laurin said if he was going to die the next day, he wanted to hurt students as he wouldn't get in trouble.
He also told them he did not like his job or being around kids and that he liked Grade 8s because he could just give them worksheets.
Students described the comments as “weird” and reported feeling shocked although they thought he was joking.
Two days after the incidents, Laurin was issued a school district letter of discipline and suspended for most of December.
He was also required to complete a Justice Institute of BC course on reinforcing professional boundaries.
“Laurin failed to appreciate how his comments might be interpreted by students,” Kushner said, adding a further one-day suspension.
