Alberta's searchable teacher registry to go live this week

Starting later this week Albertans will be able to search an online database and find out the names and professional standings of 162,000 teachers and teacher leaders dating back to 1954.

The province's new teacher registry will have information about what certificates teachers hold, what the status of those certificates is and when they were issued.

It will also say which teachers voluntarily surrendered their certificates — or if their certificate was cancelled or suspended for non disciplinary reasons. Copies of disciplinary decisions dating back to 1990 will also be available.

Deceased teachers included

If a teacher is dead, their certificate status will be listed as inactive.

Alberta Education says making this information available is intended to help the public confirm if their teachers were in good professional standing. It says even if a teacher's status is inactive, their former students or colleagues may want to know information about that teacher that is relevant to their own experiences. 

Last week, families told CBC News that adding the names of deceased teachers to the registry feels unnecessary and hurtful.

B.C., Saskatchewan and Ontario have similar online registries, but all three remove names from their registries when they're informed a teacher has died.

Education Minister Adriana LaGrange was not available for an interview, but in the past she has said the registry will purposefully include teachers who have died so the information can be used by Albertans. 

In a news release, LaGrange said the vast majority of Alberta's teaching profession upholds the high standard for those entrusted with children each day.

"We will balance individual teachers' rights to privacy and procedural fairness with the public's right to know when a teacher has been disciplined, resulting in a teaching certificate being suspended or cancelled," she said. 

Exemptions rare

Exemptions to being included on the registry will be rare, according to the province, and so far only 85 have been requested.

Albertans will be able to go online to the registry starting Sept. 1. They will be able to search teachers using a name, partial name, date range, certificate type or by suspension (or cancellations) of certificates. 

Up until now, this information has not been publicly available in Alberta. The changes are part of Bill 85, which was passed in the legislature last year. 

There are currently about 55,000 certified teachers in the province.