B.C. teacher suspended after failing to report student’s threat of self-harm
Posted December 15, 2023 5:54 pm.
A B.C. teacher had her teaching license suspended for five days after she failed to immediately report a student’s threat of self-harm.
Deisy Maritza Ospina Ostios was working as an elementary school teacher at an independent school in B.C. when the incident occurred in Nov. 2022.
Documents from the British Columbia Commissioner for Teacher Regulation show that Ospina Ostios waited three hours before texting the principal of the school when she found out about the threat.
The document also notes that Ospina Ostios violated the student’s privacy by giving another student’s parents information about them.
The school placed Ospina Ostios on a two-day administrative leave on Nov. 18, 2022, shortly after the incident, as an investigation took place.
On Nov. 24, 2022, she was issued a letter of expectation. Ospina Ostios resigned that same day and gave her two-week notice. Her resignation took effect on Dec. 8, 2022.
“Immediately before she resigned from the school, Ospina Ostios shared her criticisms of the school principal with her students’ parents by way of a group email,” the document states.
A year later, on Nov. 24, 2023, Ospina Ostios entered into a consent resolution agreement with the commissioner, in which she admitted her conduct constituted “professional misconduct.”
“The school had previously made clear its expectation about what teachers were supposed to do in case students threatened self-harm,” the document said.
The document also states the expectation is to report “worrisome behaviour” in a “timely manner” to the school administration. The school’s staff handbook, which all the staff had to sign, states worrisome behaviour can include “threatening statements or other behaviours that cause concern.”
Ospina Ostios was suspended from Dec. 11 to Dec. 15, 2023.
She agreed not to make “any statement orally or in writing which contradicts, disputes or calls into question the terms of the consent resolution agreement or
the admissions made in it.”
The teacher has also agreed to take a course on respectful professional boundaries.
In other to protect the student’s identity, the agreement did not name the school or community.
