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What are the reasons a student can be expelled from school in Ontario?

Expulsion is the most serious punishment available within the school system and it can have long-lasting consequences for expelled students both for their education and for their lives more generally. Although Boards deny it, most expelled students have some identifiable characteristics. They are more often racialized, have special education needs, are socially awkward – nerds, geeks and such, have been in the care of a children’s aid society or a combination of those. In short, they are the most vulnerable students. But, none of these are good reasons to expel a student. Alternatively, principals want kids out of their school if there is even a hint of sexual impropriety, which raises lots of questions about injecting school discipline into student social dynamics, especially among teenagers.

First, it makes a big difference whether the student is in a publicly funded school or a private school. Public school students have more protection. Private schools can kick out kids for any reason that is permitted by the contract with the parents – and many private schools have contracts that basically allow the school to kick out kids without a good reason. Private school contracts can also require the expulsion of students for activities that have nothing to do with the school. Watch the video below or listen to this podcast episode about the importance of those contracts and parents knowing what is in them. Only if the contract refers to Part XII of the Education Act sections that address discipline in public schools will the rest of what I say apply.

Ontario’s Education Act set out what behaviour can lead to expulsion and a procedure for deciding whether a student should be expelled. Again, this law only applies to publicly funded schools unless a private school incorporates some or all of this part of the Education Act into the contract.

The Education Act does not allow school boards to expel students for any behaviour. First, even if a student behaves badly there must be some link between the behaviour and the school. Section 310(1) of the Education Act says a student can only be expelled for something the student did

  • While at school
  • While engaged in a school-related activity; or
  • In circumstances where engaging in the activity will have an impact on the school climate

Obviously, principals and teachers can discipline a student for anything the student does at school. It is also an obvious extension that the school faculty can discipline a student for things the student does on a school field trip, at school sports activity, while participating in a school club or at a school dance or other school event. Where the school, or the school board, organizes an activity, students are subject to the same discipline as they would face in the classroom or in the schoolyard.

Some principals make nefarious use of that third criterion – activities that impact school climate – to expel kids for activities that have nothing to do with school, even events that happened far away from school during school breaks that did not involve students of the school. The principal says that such behaviour would impact the school climate, but in most cases that is not true.

To impact a school climate, not only must an activity have some relationship to the school, such as other people from the school being impacted or involved, but if the behaviour does occur at school or a school-related activity, it must have an impact on many of the people at the school – a person’s behaviour can’t impact a school climate just by affecting one person. It must impact many people at the school and impact them in a way that, well affects the entire climate of the school. If a lot of people connected with the school do not know of the alleged behaviour, then it probably did not affect the school climate and so a student cannot be expelled for it.

Where a student’s behaviour did not occur at school, nor at a school-related activity, nor impact many people at the school, then the student and the student’s parents should not agree to the expulsion and instead should argue this point at an expulsion hearing, and if the school board still expels the student, then the student or the student’s parents should immediately file an appeal of the expulsion with the Child and Family Services Review Board.

To explain that a bit more, here are some examples: 

  • Dealing drugs at school is grounds for expulsions.
  • Dealing drugs away from the school to people who do not go to school is not grounds for expulsion.
  • Dealing drugs away from the school, but where some of the customers happen to be students, is not grounds for expulsion.
  • Dealing drugs away from the school to students at the school after “advertising” at school where to get the drugs is grounds for expulsion.

There are other behaviours that can have stronger or weaker links to school, dealing drugs is just one example to illustrate the point. The more connected an expellable offence is to the school, the more likely the student can be expelled for it – and the less connected, the more difficult it will be to expel the student.

Not everything a student does at school can get the student expelled. There is a relatively short list of offences that can get a child expelled from public school. Those are:

  1. Possessing a weapon, including possessing a firearm.
  2. Using a weapon to cause or to threaten bodily harm to another person.
  3. Committing physical assault on another person that causes bodily harm requires treatment by a medical practitioner.
  4. Committing sexual assault.
  5. Trafficking in weapons or illegal drugs.
  6. Committing robbery.
  7. Giving alcohol or cannabis to a minor.
  8. Repeated Bullying.
  9. Bullying that creates an unacceptable risk to the safety of another person.
  10. Threatening bodily harm, swearing at a teacher or person in authority, committing vandalism or bullying where the behaviour was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate.
  11. Other behaviour that the school board’s policies say must result in an investigation into whether the student should be expelled

With respect to that last point, school boards have tried to open up what they can expel students for by putting in a policy that expulsion must be considered for any behaviour that impacts the moral tone of the school. However, expulsion appeal cases have held that, like activities that impact the school climate, to impact the moral tone of the school, the behaviour must have had an impact on many people, students and teachers, at the school, not just one, two or a few. Impacting the moral tone of the school means exactly what it says, it must impact the entire school or almost the entire school to change the “tone” at the school. 

If a student’s behaviour does not fall into one of those 11 categories, it is not an offence for which a student can be expelled. A student cannot be expelled for just coming to school drunk or high. A student cannot be expelled for hitting someone unless the victim needs medical attention it is an act of bullying and the student has already been suspended for bullying or the attack was an act of bigotry. Vandalism that is not motivated by bias, prejudice or hate is not an offence that gets a student expelled.

  • A parent or student should not agree to expulsion unless the student’s behaviour is on the list of behaviours that can get a student expelled and should go to the expulsion hearing, or appeal the expulsion, if necessary.

It may not be appropriate to expel a student who has done something that is on the list of expellable offences. In a document called Policy/Program Memorandum 145, the Ministry of Education has told school boards that expulsion should not be the first discipline that a school board uses against a student. Instead, school boards are to focus on early intervention strategies to prevent unsafe or inappropriate behaviour. From there schools should use progressive discipline, using the least intrusive discipline measures first and only employing more severe consequences when lesser discipline does not work. Even then discipline must be corrective and supportive not punitive. In addition, the school is required to actively engage parents in the progressive discipline approach. It is not appropriate to expel a student when the first-time parents hear that their child has behavioural problems when they get the letter that the child may be expelled.

Where a school has not used progressive discipline, the parents, or student, should challenge the expulsion at an expulsion hearing or appeal.

Consistent with that approach, Ontario Law says that it is likely not appropriate to expel a student where allowing the student to continue in school does not create an unacceptable risk to the safety of any person at the school.

There are additional things that can make expulsion an inappropriate form of discipline. Ontario Regulation 472/07 makes several of them very clear. Expulsion may be inappropriate under Ontario Law where:

  • The student could not control the behaviour
  • The student cannot understand the consequences of the behaviour
  • The behaviour was related to an accused student having been harassed because of his or her race, ethnicity, religion, disability gender or sexual orientation
  • The behaviour was the manifestation of a disability identified in the student’s Individual Education Plan or IEP
  • The behaviour was the result of the school failing to provide appropriate accommodation to the student’s identified special needs,
  • Where an expulsion will make the student’s behaviour worse.

In addition, since discipline is supposed to have an educational purpose, that is, it must help the student’s education, it can be inappropriate to expel a student where the expulsion would have a negative effect on the student’s overall long-term education rather than supporting it. This means that an expulsion that is intended to encourage a student to drop out is not appropriate.

This page explains what to do to challenge an expulsion, both at the expulsion hearing and at an appeal. There are specific grounds on which an expulsion can be prevented or overturned. But, if any of the factors that I just described make an expulsion inappropriate, then the parent or student should fight the expulsion. If you need more help doing that then you should speak to an Education Lawyer to get advice and to get specific guidance for your situation.

Note that Ontario Law is very tough on bullying. Public Schools are required to do a lot to fight bullying (private schools are only required to do what is in the contract with the students’ parents) The first time a student bullies, they can be suspended. After a student has been suspended for bullying, if that same student bullies again, the principal is required to suspend the bully from school for up to 20 days while the principal considers expelling the bully. There is not much sympathy for bullies when they try to fight a suspension or expulsion from school.

When a student’s activities do not meet the criteria, set out above, for them to be expelled, some principals and other school officials have tried to use another power, called “exclusion” to prevent the student from going to school. A principal can “exclude”, or deny access to a school, any person whose presence is detrimental to the safety or well-being of anyone at the school. So, some school officials have tried to use that power to kick out students who have not done anything that meets the criteria to expel them. However, the Ministry of Education has directed that exclusions are not to be used as a form of discipline. Section 3(3) of Ontario Regulation 474/00 prohibits school officials from excluding a student from the school in which that student is enrolled – just other schools where the student does not have classes. So, this is not something that school boards can do to get rid of students. I covered exclusions in a previous episode.

While it may be possible to expel private school students for anything, things are different for public school students. They must have misbehaved at school, at a school-related activity or in a way that has impacted many students at the school. In addition, there are only eleven types of misbehaviour for which a school board can expel a student. If the student did not commit one of those types of acts, they cannot be expelled. And, there are some special circumstances where even if a student did one of those types of behaviour, they still cannot be expelled. If a school is trying to expel a student improperly, the student and parents should fight that expulsion. There are procedures for doing that and for appealing expulsions. If you need help with that, email us, or use the form below to get in touch with an Education Lawyer. There are several at our office and you can reach them by calling 416-446-5847.

John Schuman Guide to the Basics of Ontario Family Law book cover

You can get a lot more information about Ontario Family Law issues, including a comprehensive explanation of parenting cases (parenting time and decision making), child support, spousal support, property division, and most other common family law issues by downloading this $9.99 Kindle eBook, Kobo eBook, or iBook for your iPad or iPhone or ordering it from Amazon as a paperback. But to understand how the law works precisely in your situation, it is always best to speak to a good Family Law Lawyer.

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