A whistleblower teacher who says her former colleagues at a prestigious B.C. private school emotionally abused young athletes has filed a constructive dismissal lawsuit claiming she and her son were bullied and harassed.

Jennifer Fraser, a teacher, author and playwright in Victoria, B.C., taught at St. Michael’s University School (SMUS) between 2004 and 2013 when she left because of what she calls a “hostile, humiliating, poisoned or intolerable work environment,” reads a statement of claim filed in court.

The allegations have not been proven and no statement of defence has yet been filed in court.

In a written statement responding to the lawsuit, SMUS officials said Fraser’s legal action, “repeats allegations which have been repeatedly and comprehensively rejected by independent reviewers. For this reason, and others, the School regards the action as an abuse of the court’s process. SMUS will vigorously defend its position.”

Those reviews — by the school and the province’s teacher regulation body — found that while coaches did yell profanities at young athletes, there was no basis for the allegations of emotional abuse.

“The investigation reports all contain glowing testimony about the character and coaching ability of the teachers named and substantial support from the vast majority of student athletes and their parents,” reads a previous statement SMUS provided to the Star.

Fraser is among several former students and parents from SMUS featured in a Toronto Star/W5 investigation in March detailing allegations of emotionally abusive conduct by teacher coaches, including screaming profanities at teenage players such as “f--- retard,” “f--- pussy” and “f---- idiot.”

The Star has reviewed 13 written testimonies from former SMUS athletes from 2012 who alleged being victims of bullying, intimidation and demeaning. The Star has also interviewed more than a dozen former players and their parents who filed complaints with the school between 2011 and 2013.

Many of these students say they have lingering psychological issues from the coaching they received, including individual cases of anxiety, sleeplessness and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Fraser’s statement of claim says conflict with her former employer began in March of 2012 when her son, Montgomery, began to show signs of “physical and psychological symptoms as a result of the abuse by the teacher coaches.”

In response to her complaints, SMUS headmaster Bob Snowden told Fraser, “neither Ian Hyde-Lay nor Reagan Daly would coach” the boys’ basketball team the following year, the statement of claim reads.

That commitment was not met, she alleges.

Requests for interviews with SMUS coaches were declined.

Montgomery was subsequently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder for which he continues to be treated.

Following Fraser’s complaints about teacher-coach conduct, Snowden asked her and another parent to gather student testimonies about the conduct, assuring her that their names would remain confidential, the statement alleges.

Those testimonies contained allegations of coaches swearing, humiliating, and “instilling fear” in students, grabbing Montgomery by the arm and jersey and holding him “while yelling in his face,” and calling students profane names, the claim reads.

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In response to Fraser’s questioning of her colleagues and the school’s handling of the allegations, she became the target of defamation, harassment and bullying, the statement alleges.

Fraser’s workplace became a place where she was “compelled to witness her son and other students being repeatedly threatened and humiliated.”

In August 2012, a SMUS representative “threatened” her by saying she “may be the subject of a defamation action if she continued to pursue the complaints,” the statement reads.

After investigating the complaints from students and parents, the school took no action against its coaches. A 2012 report by a Vancouver lawyer named John Sanderson, based on interviews with 35 students, concluded that while coaches “openly cursed,” “there were no behaviours that were deliberately abusive or demeaning.”

A subsequent review by Bruce Preston, the commissioner of the province’s Teacher Regulation Branch, drew similar conclusions.

By July 2013, she says the toxic work environment amounted to a “constructive dismissal” and a breach of her employment contract.

She resigned her position.

She alleges that SMUS officials slandered her professionally and “injured her character, credit and reputation.”

The conflict caused mental distress, the loss of her position, “severe stress, embarrassment and humiliation,” the claim says.

In an interview this week, Fraser said she held off on her lawsuit over the past two years hoping education officials in B.C. would take action.

“I wouldn’t have pursued this. Who wants the stress? But every single government agency with the power to protect kids hasn’t done anything so the only recourse I have is to file my own personal lawsuit.”