A Campbell River substitute teacher’s licence was suspended after saying he wanted to use a student to beat two other students to death.
Joshua Frederick Roland Laurin made the comments on a field trip on November 6th, 2018. He was “teaching on call” for School District 72 at the time.
The British Columbia Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, Howard Kushner, says students on the trip overheard Laurin making those and other comments they described as “weird.”
Laurin said he didn’t like his job, didn’t like being around kids, but did like Grade 8 because he could “leave students with worksheets and then leave them to it.” He also said he wanted to use one of the students to “whack” two others.
After the trip was over and the students were back in the classroom Laurin said that “if he was going to die the following day, he would want to hurt students as he would not then get into any trouble.” The commissioner says some of the students reported feeling shocked by these comments but believed Laurin was joking.
Two days later SD 72 handed Laurin a disciplinary letter and suspended him from the substitute list for three weeks. He was also required to complete a course called Reinforcing Professional Boundaries, which he finished in March of this year.
Laurin admitted to the commissioner that his actions amounted to professional misconduct and admitted to the incidents outlined. His licence was suspended for one day, October 24th, as punishment.
The commissioner says in determining the appropriateness of the punishment it considered that Laurin finished the course he was told to take, served his previous three-week suspension and that he “failed to appreciate how his comments might be interpreted by students.”
The commissioner’s findings, dated October 22nd, were first published today. Laurin is no longer employed by the Campbell River School District.
