Canadian Safety Reporter

6 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2015 CSR | August 2015 | News Altercation with student spells termination for Toronto school board worker Woman wasn't on duty but identified herself as school board employee BY JEFFREY R. SMITH THE ONTARIO LABOUR Rela- tions Board has upheld the firing of a school board employee who was involved in an obscenity- laced altercation with a student who was bullying her daughter. Sylvia Hatzantonis was hired by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) in 2003 as a site clerical with the board's English and French language training for adult immigrants. On Sept. 25, 2012, Hatzan- tonis picked up her 13-year-old daughter from her school. When she arrived, she found her daugh- ter crying after an altercation with a 14-year-old male student. Hatzantonis learned the student had been bullying her daughter. Hatzantonis confronted the student, demanded he apologize to her daughter and made several inappropriate comments. Video evidence Soon after, the TDSB was given a video of the incident that had been recorded by another stu- dent who had watched it unfold. The video showed Hatzan- tonis shouting at the student, swearing repeatedly, calling him vulgar names, saying he was lucky she was on school board property, threatening to tell his parents he smoked drugs and had sex with another male stu- dent behind the school, telling the student she worked for the TDSB and could find out any- thing she wanted about him, and shouting after the student and calling his mother a vulgar name. The TDSB placed Hatzanto- nis on home assignment while it investigated. Police also learned of the incident and charged Hat- zantonis with uttering death threats, intimidation, assault and causing a disturbance. Hatzantonis completed two anger management courses and paid a fine, after which the charges were withdrawn and she agreed to a peace bond. Investigation reveals details The TDSB's investigation found Hatzantonis guilty of conduct contrary to its operational pro- cedure dealing with abuse and neglect of students, which stat- ed it was "unacceptable for an employee to insult, degrade or direct demeaning comments to a child, as this may constitute emotional abuse." The investigation also found Hatzantonis went out of her way to make it clear she was a TDSB employee. The board interviewed a num- ber of witnesses, including three students who said Hatzantonis asked them to write statements that cast her in a positive light so she wouldn't lose her job. She apparently told these students she needed the letters because she was "in trouble with work." She offered to treat the students to whatever they wanted at Mc- Donald's if they wrote the letters. Hatzantonis told the TDSB the student indicated he had a knife, but the video didn't show any such comment — though the be- ginning of the incident wasn't re- corded. She also didn't deny she sought witness statements, but said she simply told them to tell the truth. However, she admitted she treated them at McDonald's in exchange for their letters. At the time of her interview, Hatzantonis wasn't aware there was a video of the altercation. She initially denied swearing at the student other than one ini- tial comment, and admitted she shouldn't have told the student she would tell his parents he was having sex with another student behind the school. She denied threatening or touching the stu- dent. Hatzantonis said that "as a mother" she thought she did what she had to do. After seeing the video, she conceded she had tugged at the student's jacket and could have handled the situation better. She apologized for not men- tioning she had used other ob- scenities and called the student names. She said things had gone Presenteeism > pg. 8 Credit: wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

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