Alberta launches online registry for teaching professionals
Posted Sep 4, 2022 2:44 pm.
Last Updated Sep 4, 2022 3:29 pm.
Alberta has officially launched an online teacher registry designed to provide transparency and accountability regarding a teacher’s status.
About 162,000 educators who received their certification since 1954 will be included in the Teacher and Teacher Leader Registry.
It went online Thursday.
This will be an accessible database that will show information about teachers and teacher leaders such as the teacher’s name, type of teaching certification and its validity, and the date they received their certification.
The registry will highlight disciplinary decisions that may have resulted in a certification being suspended or cancelled for unprofessional conduct or incompetence from 1990 onwards, says the province.
The registry will also include details about whether the teacher or school administrator is deceased, has been disciplined, or has had their license suspended.
“The vast majority of our teaching profession upholds the high standards we all have for those entrusted with our children each day,” said Minister of Education Adriana LaGrange. “We will balance individual teachers’ rights to privacy and procedural fairness with the public’s right to know when a teacher has been disciplined, resulting in a teaching certificate being suspended or cancelled.”
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The overall goal and purpose of this registry is to ensure the safety of the learning environment for students.
“Alberta is lucky to have incredible educators who work tirelessly to create safe and enriching learning environments,” said Mary Jane James, CEO, of Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton. “In the rare circumstances where a teacher or teacher leader chooses to abuse their power and has been disciplined as a result, the public has a right to know.”
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Other provinces such as Ontario, B.C., and Saskatchewan already have a registry in place, which also shares information about a teacher’s status, teaching certifications and disciplinary matters.
A teacher requesting to be exempted from disclosing their information will be made on a case-by-case basis, according to the province.
–With files from Alejandro Melgar, Saif Kaisar, and The Canadian Press
