A year after the tragic drowning of a 15-year-old Toronto student on a school canoe trip, a teacher supervising the excursion has been charged with criminal negligence causing death.

While the charge against C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute teacher Nicholas Mills has understandably brought relief to the family of the teen, Jeremiah Perry, it casts doubts over the future of school outings.

There is no question, as Mayor John Tory has said about this heart-rending case, that precautions must be taken on school trips to keep kids safe.

But there’s also no doubt that charging of a teacher with a crime that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison risks putting a chill on the future of many types of school excursions.

After all, what teacher — or parent, for that matter — would volunteer to supervise children on an outing if they fear they could be held criminally responsible for any accidents?

While the merits of the case against Mills will ultimately be decided by the courts, no one would want to make school excursions an impossible dream for kids.

This is especially true for those from poor backgrounds who now may never experience the great outdoors on a canoe trip.

The terrible details of Jeremiah’s death will be familiar to many.

The student, who had recently immigrated to Canada from Guyana, was one of 33 kids from C.W. Jefferys and Westview Centennial Secondary School on a week-long trip to Algonquin Provincial Park when he slipped under the water while swimming in a lake with his classmates and didn’t surface.

Though the Toronto District School Board insisted after the accident that every student on the outing was required to pass swim and canoe skills tests to participate, it quickly became apparent that was not the case.

First, not only could Perry not swim, as his family attested at the time, but neither could 14 other students on the trip. Indeed, two other students didn’t even take the test.

Second, on the face of it, it appears there were systemic problems at play that the TDSB immediately set out to resolve.

Last August, for example, it announced the obvious: that any student who has failed his or her swim test won’t be allowed to participate in any activities involving water. As well, it said students should have been offered swim lessons and a second test if they failed the first one, and that future trips would now be approved only after the principal of the school sees documents proving all students passed the required swim test.

Since then the board has also instituted other safety measures. If students pass a swim test in a pool, for example, they will also need to pass a second test at the location of the trip in open water. If they fail that second test, they are banned from participating in any water-related activities during the excursion. And even if they pass both tests, they will be required to wear a life-jacket at all times if they are swimming or taking part in activities on the water.

The province, too, pledged $300,000 after Jeremiah drowned for survival swim programs for students.

Would that all of those clear and sensible policies had been in place a year ago. But, sadly, they weren’t.

After Jeremiah drowned, his father Joshua Anderson told the Star he hoped his son’s death would spark change. Thankfully, it has.

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Hopefully, that change will ensure that no other parent, as Anderson said, has “to bring their child home in a body bag.”

Now we have to hope, too, that students will continue to have opportunities to go on excursions. For some, it is the only chance they have to get out of the city and experience the beauty of nature. No child should have to miss out on that.

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