'Inappropriate' Facebook post gets B.C. teacher temporary suspension

A B.C. secondary school teacher has been suspended for two days without pay for posting a comment to her Facebook page regarding several students which the province's commissioner for teacher regulation described as "inaccurate" and "inappropriate."

According to a Dec. 1, Commissioner for Teacher Regulation decision, the teacher, Shannon Lee Rerie, posted a comment under a Facebook post from a local newspaper of four students that had done well at a team sporting event.

On her personal Facebook page, she wrote, "Wish they'd been nicer students in my class... I'd be way more impressed with this."

She then included a thinking emoji and a shrug emoji.

The decision says one of Rerie's friends then shared the post and the parents of three of the students then saw it.

"One parent was concerned that the existence of this post could negatively affect their child's scholarship application," reads the decision.

The decision says Rerie, who had been registered as a teacher since 2007 and worked for School District No. 27, Cariboo-Chilcotin, had only ever taught two of the children featured in the news article posted to Facebook.

READ MORE: B.C. teacher reprimanded for telling class to 'shut up'

Rerie made the post Jan. 23, 2020, and less than two weeks later was issued a letter of discipline and suspended for two days without pay.

According to the decision, Rerie had been spoken to several times over the last decade about her Facebook account and the need to tighten her security over it and "watch what she posts."

Rerie signed a Consent Resolution Agreement with the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, Nov. 29, admitting to professional misconduct and agreeing that she shared "confidential information" about the students in the school which was both inaccurate and inappropriate.

The consent agreement stipulates that Rerie is not allowed to make any statement orally or in writing that contradicts, disputes, or calls into question the agreement.

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