Teacher claims she was fired for standing up for student with special needs

Parents are rallying behind a former Vancouver teacher who claims she was fired for standing up for a student with special needs.

Susan Debeck was teaching at University Hill Elementary School when a five-year-old boy with autism began crying inconsolably. She called the office for help and two administrators came to the classroom.

“They took the child under his armpits and they dragged him down the hall,” Debeck said. “By that time the child was screaming. I was outside the classroom, I was crying myself.”

Debeck said the incident was one of the most distressing in her 18-year career. She believes physical intervention was unnecessary, citing training protocols that advise it should be a last resort for students who are a threat to themselves or others.

Afterward, she decided to raise the issue with her superiors.

“If there are practices in my school that I feel are untenable then as a professional I feel I need to uphold that and say ‘No, this is not alright,’” Debeck said. “My first loyalty is to my students.”

Several hearings followed, and in October 2013, she was fired.

The Vancouver School Board can’t discuss the matter but an administrators’ report described Debeck’s conduct as “insolent and insubordinate.”

“Debeck has continued to communicate in a manner which undermines public confidence in the school system and its capacity to provide services to students with special needs,” it reads.

Debeck told the board she didn’t have the proper training or support to handle special needs students in her class, and that there are many teachers struggling through similar situations.

Her firing has upset parents at her former school, including Henry Davis, who supports her cause.

“We need to put some resources into it so that people like Susan and the rest of the excellent teachers at the Vancouver School Board can get the support they need,” Davis said.

The B.C. Teachers Federation said the number of classrooms containing four or more students with special needs has soared from 9,599 in 2006 to 16,163 in 2014.

The union said many teachers need additional help, though B.C. Education Minister Peter Fassbender said the government is already working on a strategy.

“We will be putting out some provincial guidelines to make sure we have a base of approaches when we’re dealing with special needs students,” he said.

Debeck’s union has grieved her termination. She said she’s being offered retirement or resignation, but not her job back.

She said this isn’t the way she wanted to end her career, but if speaking out helps create better conditions for students, it will have been worth it.

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Mi-Jung Lee