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On-call teacher in Nanaimo reprimanded by B.C. teacher regulation branch

Teacher suspended for equivalent of four days after incident in September
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A teacher on call in Nanaimo was suspended for a September 2016 incident involving an autistic child. (News Bulletin file)

An on-call teacher in Nanaimo was suspended for an incident involving an autistic child.

According to a B.C. Teacher Regulation Branch consent resolution agreement, Sherri Lee Loewen was suspended without pay from the teacher on-call list between Oct. 26 and Nov. 8 for the incident, which occurred Sept. 16.

The student, a six-year-old autistic boy, was having a temper tantrum, and an education assistant assigned to him moved him to a storage room with bookshelves, a table and chairs and a door with a window. The assistant was called away, leaving the boy with Loewen, according to the document.

When the assistant left, the storage room door was open.

Loewen closed the door, locking the student inside. She opened the door to ask the boy if he wanted to go outside, but shut it after he yelled at her.

Loewen didn’t stay at the window to ensure the student was safe and when the assistant returned, she saw Loewen some distance from the storage room door. The EA looked through the window and couldn’t see the student because he was sitting with his back against the door.

The assistant found that the door was locked and when she opened it with her key, she found he was “curled up in a ball crying. When the EA turned around, she discovered Loewen had left the room without confirming that the responsibility for caring for [the student] had been transferred to the EA,” said the document.

According to agreement, Loewen admitted that her actions constituted professional misconduct and also agreed to have her certificate of qualification suspended for two days this month.

Dale Burgos, Nanaimo school district spokesman, couldn’t say if Loewen was still a teacher on call, as the district doesn’t comment on personnel matters.

Mike Ball, Nanaimo teachers’ union president, said he can’t comment on anything that the regulation branch publishes.

Loewen_CRA_20170427 by Karl Yu on Scribd



Karl Yu

About the Author: Karl Yu

After interning at Vancouver Metro free daily newspaper, I joined Black Press in 2010.
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