A registry disclosing Manitoba teachers' disciplinary records, which the province had promised would come online this January, is now public.

The registry of certified teachers and school clinicians shows the certification status of kindergarten to Grade 12 education professionals, including whether they've been suspended or can no longer teach in the province.

"This is a really important first step, something we've been waiting for," said Noni Classen, a director at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

Classen said the new system will help measure how the province is doing in addressing complaints against educators and will create accountability around future complaints.

"There's also a public interest but also a public accessibility to it that we haven't had before, which is critical," said Classen.

Similar registries for other professions were already in place in the province, but there wasn't one for teachers. The new registry makes Manitoba one of a handful of provinces in Canada disclosing such information to the public.

Users can look up the names of people who have held a teaching certificate in Manitoba from 1960 to the present day to find their current status as well as the type of certificate, when it was issued and any disciplinary records.

Danielle McNab, who years ago brought forward concerns about the inappropriate behaviour of a teacher at the Winnipeg private school she'd attended from kindergarten to Grade 11, said disclosing the records publicly means a teacher's problematic history cannot be easily swept under the rug.

The registry shows the teacher had his licence suspended in 2022, but it does not provide any details about what led to that decision. McNab, who is now 21, said she would like the registry to include more information in the future.

"If it was a violent incident or something else, I think that would be probably an important thing to know," she said. "But I think this is good."

Krista Herd, who had two children that previously went to the school McNab attended, would also like to see explanations for why an educator's been removed from the classroom.

She wonders if teachers are penalized for frivolous complaints as opposed to something serious, such as inappropriately touching a student.

"I see a difference in that, right? And I would like to see on the registry itself what the cause is for that."

Acting education minister Tracy Schmidt said in an interview that any frivolous or vexatious complaint will be rejected by the province's new standardized disciplinary process, which also launched Monday.

Bobbi Taillefer, as Manitoba's first independent education commissioner, will be in charge of investigating educators and referring only cases that have merit to a hearing panel for adjudication.

Besides criminal cases, teacher discipline decisions were predominately handled behind closed doors. Individual cases were overseen in an inconsistent fashion, either by the teachers' union, their school division or the province.

The new system will create a standardized process, and as such Schmidt explained some findings from the panel's reviews will be added to the registry.

Only findings of misconduct are currently included in the registry. The database will soon include disciplinary findings around professional competence, which was also a requirement of the legislation creating the registry and new disciplinary process that passed in 2023 under the former Progressive Conservative government.

As of Monday afternoon, the list of disciplinary outcomes showed 78 educators in the province had had their licences cancelled since 1989.

The list showed 33 certificate suspensions, with five reinstated and currently in good standing. So far in 2025, there have been two suspensions and one cancellation.