Two teachers suspended for leaking secure English 12 provincial exams
Credit to Author: Stephanie Ip| Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2019 21:18:03 +0000
Two teachers — one in Coquitlam and one in Vernon — have been temporarily suspended for leaking secret copies of English 12 exams to their students.
Albert Charles Baker and Maria Concetta MacDonald were each reprimanded in similar but separate cases in which the teachers knowingly gave out restricted copies of previous English 12 provincial exams to their students to study and practise.
The signed consent agreements for both teachers were posted online Tuesday by the Ministry of Education.
In both cases, the exam copies being distributed were the property of the Ministry of Education and hadn’t been authorized for use as study material, as the ministry often reuses readings and questions from exams.
Baker, who has been teaching since 1991, was head of the English department during the 2017-18 school year when he distributed at least 15 readings and questions from exams to his students.
Some of the material was given to the Coquitlam teacher as part of his contract to work as an exam marker for the province between 2010 and 2018. Under contract, Baker wasn’t to disclose or use any of the marking materials without the ministry’s permission.
In June 2018, the English 12 provincial exam given to Baker’s class included material from exams he had distributed. When he became aware, he didn’t report it and lied when questioned by a colleague, two other students and the district.
Baker was suspended by the district for 10 days without pay in August 2018 and was forced to give up his department-head role. As part of a signed consent agreement, Baker’s teaching certificate was suspended for five days.
In MacDonald’s case, she received a copy of an exam for the purpose of reviewing a student’s exam results. She had been instructed by the principal to “get rid” of the restricted exam when the review was complete, but she kept it instead.
The Vernon teacher later distributed a copy of the exam to her English 12 students, which contained questions used in the January 2018 English 12 exam. When MacDonald became aware of this, she didn’t report it, but did discuss it with other English teachers.
When the district investigated, MacDonald handed over a copy of the secure exam that had a ‘do not distribute’ warning blocked out from the exam’s front page. MacDonald was suspended for one day without pay in March 2018.
Under a signed consent deal, MacDonald will also have her teaching certificate suspended for three days.
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