The Ontario government plans to amend its definition of sexual abuse by teachers “as soon as possible,” to make licence revocation mandatory for more offences — an announcement that follows a Star investigation into transfers of abusive teachers from school to school.

“Sexual abuse in our schools is unacceptable. Our schools must be safe, inclusive and welcoming places for our students,” Shazia Vlahos, a spokesperson for Education Minister Indira Naidoo-Harris, wrote to the Star Wednesday evening.

“Our government plans to update the definition of sexual abuse resulting in mandatory revocation in alignment with our government’s recent changes to the Regulated Health Professions Act.”

The changes for health-care professionals came after a Star campaign last year and made revocation of a licence mandatory if an individual engaged in forms of sexual touching or groping of patients. Currently, those are not grounds for automatic revocation of a teacher’s licence in Ontario.

Read more: One wrong just creates another wrong: how the quiet transfer of teachers over disciplinary issues has lead to a pattern of abuse in schools

Teachers who commit certain forms of sexual abuse allowed to keep their licenses

Under the Protecting Students Act, a 2016 amendment to the Ontario College of Teachers Act and the Early Childhood Educators Act, if a teacher engages in intercourse, masturbation, child pornography, or any of the following contacts — genital-to-genital, genital-to-oral, anal-to-genital, and oral-to-anal — their licence must be revoked.

But if a teacher gropes a student, touches them in other sexual ways, or makes sexual comments toward a student, their licence isn’t automatically revoked. The amendments planned by the Ontario government would be within the Ontario College of Teachers Act.

The ministry has not yet provided a timeline for the planned changes. “We will move to update as soon as possible,” Vlahos told the Star.

The Star’s investigation has detailed how teachers in the province can be transferred to another school after their boards find reason to discipline them. In some of the province’s largest school boards, there is no requirement to tell a new principal about the incoming teacher’s past.

The Star identified 27 cases heard by the Ontario College of Teachers, the provincial oversight and licensing body, between January 2012 and November 2017. In each case, the teacher had been investigated by their school board, disciplined, and transferred at least once by the time their case made it to a college hearing.

In all of the cases, the college’s disciplinary panel — made up of publicly appointed and teacher-elected college members — substantiated allegations of sexual, physical, psychological or verbal abuse, or serious misconduct by those teachers.

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Where allegations of sexual abuse are substantiated, a teacher may still return to the classroom after fulfilling conditions such as coursework or suspensions, because of the current rules around automatic revocation.

“Protecting the safety of students is important, Vlahos wrote to the Star, “so that all students can reach their full potential.”

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