OK to Fire Librarian for Loaning Sexually Explicit Novels to High School Students

A few years after being suspended for 5 days for engaging in an inappropriate Facebook Messenger conversation with a vulnerable female student, a teacher librarian was terminated for lending out to high school students graphic novels containing sexually-explicit, drug-related and violent images. The union conceded that some form of discipline was in order, but contended that termination was excessive especially since the school didn’t have a clear policy guiding the selection of library materials. But the B.C. arbitrator upheld termination. Even without a policy, the librarian should have realized that materials in the novels were at least questionable, if not entirely inappropriate for a high school library. Teachers occupy a position of trust and the teacher/librarian in this case “seems, for whatever reason, incapable of exercising the common sense and proper judgment required,” the arbitrator concluded [BC Public School Employers Association/ Board of Education of School District No. 68 (Nanaimo-Ladysmith) v BC Teachers’ Federation/Nanaimo District Teachers’ Association, 2021 CanLII 109310 (BC LA), November 1, 2021].