A brief suspension is in store for a Kelowna teacher after he showed his Grade 8 class age-inappropriate videos.
Justin Enns, thought to be a teacher at either Okanagan Mission Secondary or Kelowna Secondary School, has been suspended for three days for misconduct that occurred in the 2018/19 school year. This follows a five-day suspension last year.
The first clip shown to the class wasfrom the show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, in which security passwords were discussed. John Oliver suggested that “admiralalonzoghostpenis420YOLO” and “margaretthatcheris100%SEXY” would be strong passwords.
The second was a clip from South Park where an animated character was playing video games and had his mother bring him a pot in which to defecate so that he would not have to interrupt his game.
On Jan. 14, 2019, Enns asked a student, in front of the entire class, whether they had attention deficit disorder, leaving the student embarrassed and upset and caused them to leave the classroom. While Enns did apologize to the student he also insisted that the student owed him an apology for leaving.
Two days later, that same student’s father emailed Enns, with concerns about the inappropriate videos and the incident.
Enns responded to the email the same day, including a link to the South Park video he’d shown in class. Enns forwarded the email to his principal as well but removed the link.
“Enns removed the South Park clip from the email he sent to the school principal as he did not want the principal to see it,” reads the consent resolution agreement put out by the British Columbia Commissioner for Teacher Regulation.
Enns served his unpaid, five-day suspension related to those incidents in March 2019 and was given firm expectations on his conduct moving forward.
Previously, Enns had been given a written warning in 2017 for interacting “inappropriately with students and parents.”
In 2016, he was issued a letter of expectation, asking him to “exercise judgment and sensitivity in monitoring the appropriateness of all subject matter to ensure [his] classroom is a racism-free and discrimination-free environment.”
Enns agreed to a further three-day suspension of his teaching certificate on May 20, 2020, which was served in early-June 2020.
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Do you have something to add to this story, or something else we should report on? Email: michael.rodriguez@kelownacapnews.com
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