Professional misconduct recognizes hateful remarks and behaviour - Backgrounder
November 06 2020
To whom does this apply?
This applies to all members of Ontario’s teaching profession, including teachers, consultants, vice-principals, principals, supervisory officers, directors of education, those working in non-school. board positions, College members in private and independent schools, and those positions requiring a certificate of qualification.
How many Additional Qualification (AQ) courses are there?
There are more than 380 AQs developed, with 82 of them focused specifically on different types of diversity, including inclusivity in the classroom, support for newcomers, special needs and teaching LGBTQ.
How do the College’s standards of practice and ethical standards address an anti-oppressive and ethical stance?
An ethical professional engages in anti-oppressive and emancipatory practices. The standards of practice explicitly identify ethical knowledge as a core dimension of professional knowledge for educators. The ethical knowledge of individual practitioners and the collective ethical knowledge of the profession must continue to evolve to help ensure ethical school cultures, ethical pedagogies and ethical policies and practices permeate Ontario’s educational contexts.
The ethical standards explicitly address the ethical responsibilities, knowledge and commitments of educators. The four ethical standards of CARE, RESPECT, TRUST and INTEGRITY are interrelated principles that guide educators’ individual and collective action, consciousness and knowledge. The standard of respect identifies that members of the teaching profession honour human dignity, emotional wellness and cognitive development. In their professional practice, they model respect for spiritual and cultural values, social justice, confidentiality, freedom, democracy and the environment.
What are acts of Professional Misconduct?
There are now 28 grounds that describe the activities that constitute professional misconduct within the meaning of the Ontario College of Teachers Act: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/970437
The Ontario College of Teachers Act is also supported by the regulation in that “A finding of incompetence, professional misconduct or a similar finding against a member by a governing authority of the teaching profession in a jurisdiction other than Ontario that is based on facts that would, in the opinion of the Discipline Committee, constitute professional misconduct as defined in section 1, is defined as professional misconduct for the purposes of subsection 30 (2) of the Act.
Human Rights Code: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90h19
