1. Case 1
1. What is your opinion on Mr. Cooke’s statements? Does he have the authority to speak to
the press as such?
2. What is the position of Ms. Francoer in terms of the Education Act, if the fifteen year old
in fact was not or never one of her students?
3. What elements of the STF Code of Ethics may apply?

2. Case 2
Tony Vadner has been a school principal for the St. Theresa Middle Years school for the Christ
the Reformer School Division in Lucky Swamp, Saskatchewan over the past 15 years. He is very
well-respected by the community and by the board. He has a close friendship with the Chief
Financial Officer of the board with whom he discusses all board matters during their off hours
and he curls in the same curling team during the winter months. He is a no-non sense type of
principal and exercises a great deal of authority over his staff and has the respect of most families
and students in his community.
Mr. Vadner is also interested in civic politics and has been on the Lucky Swamp town council
over the past 10 years. He will often discuss civic issues with his staff informally in the staff
room, describing the clash of interests and struggles on town council as it wrestles with zoning
bylaws, municipal tax rates and the complaints of citizens about sidewalks and ice rink services.
He is free in describing the positions of individual town council members, ridiculing their
statements in town council meetings and revealing details about the reasons for the town
council’s many decisions.
Town Council business is usually conducted on Thursdays beginning at 4:00 pm outside school
hours. So he never attends school basket ball games or school-community events those nights
because of his town council meetings. Vadner attends all School-Community Council meetings
and represents the interests of the school well with parents, the public and senior administration.
From time, the town council has held special committee meetings at 3 o’clock on Tuesdays in the
afternoon, so he slips out of the school to attend those meetings. However, he returns to the
school by 5 pm to get information from the Vice-Principal who is “left in charge”. From time to
time, he will also consult widely with town council members on the phone during the school day.
Mr. Vadner enjoys his municipal work not only because he enjoys being at the center of the
decision-making but also because he can exercise his influence on town council meetings when it
sets mill rates for school taxes. His good judgment is so well-respected that he decides to run for
mayoral office while also principal. Although he was scrupulous in keeping electoral matters
separate from his school duties, he did ask the school secretary to run off some of his election
campaign literature on the school photocopier so that he could stuff mailboxes that evening.
Mayor Vadner began serving as Mayor five years ago.
As Mayor of Swampy Lake, he often finds that he has to slip out of the school during the day for half
an hour or an hour to attend to town council affairs, sign correspondence, and meet delegations at
town hall. However, he is conscientious in returning to the school evenings and weekends to make
sure that “school business” proceeds smoothly. However, one day, when a staff member makes a
snide comment in the staff room about priorities, Mr. Vadner angrily accuses the teacher before other
teachers that this teacher contributes little to the community or to the school’s extra-curricular
program, unlike he does.
1. What is your opinion of the principal’s professional conduct? Does the STF Code of Ethics
apply?
2. What is your opinion of the principal’s legal position in terms of the Education Act?
3. What is your opinion of the teache’s’ position in terms of the duties of teachers in the
Education Act?

3. Case 3
Peter Semchuk is a fifty-five year old physical education teacher who coaches the senior high
school basketball team. Basketball is his passion and not regular classroom teaching, although he
is diligent in his teaching and his planning. Mr Semchuk also is the executive commissioner of
the league which draws up basketball schedules. Every year, the basketball team wins the school
division championships and for the past five years, the team has either won or been in the
Provincial Basketball championship. Peter works tirelessly for the team, is away on most
weekends to tournaments in the November to April period, and travels across the bus many
afternoons and evenings to games in the league schedule. In fact, he and his team often leave
school at 2pm so they can be in a neighbouring city for a game at 4pm, so the team can get home
before 9 that night on the bus. Because his teams bring honour and recognition to the school, a
substitute teacher is brought into the school to cover his classroom and gymnasium duties on
those afternoons so he can travel out of town.
Mr. Semchuk has a good working relationship with the school principal, who recognizes his
efforts and his contributions to athletics and to school morale and to the school’s reputation. If
Mr. Semchuk is late in sending his mid term or final marks to the office, the principal will make
allowances and will hold back report cards for a day until he gets his marks in. From time to time,
he doesn’t have time to prepare lessons for the substitute teacher, but the principal always draws
on the services of a retired phys-ed teacher-substitute who can “improvise” and keep Peter’s
students “occupied” for those periods he is away.
Mr. Semchuk detests staff meetings which he thinks are a waste of time once a month after
school at 3:30pm for 1.5 hours until 5pm. He sees them as largely an obligation that the principal
forces on teachers to discuss routine matters for which he already knows school policy and
procedures. So in his capacity as a league commissioner, Peter has been scheduling basketball
games on staff meeting days so that he can take the team out of town early and miss every
meeting in the November to April period. That has been his practice over the past five years.
Frankly, most staff members are glad he is not at the meetings where he is often grumpy about
the “bureaucratic bs”.
However, in 2006, a new young, energetic principal who wants “to reform things” is appointed
when the old principal retires. The principal indicates that he expects all teachers to attend every
staff meeting where they will talk about new instructional methods and about new ways of
establishing a community education philosophy in the school. The principal also chooses
substitute teachers from a list at random. This necessitates that Mr. Semchuk devote hours at the
school after the bus returns from late trips preparing lessons for inexperienced substitute teachers.
On January 25 the Principal confronts Mr. Semchuk about not getting his marks in on time, and
states one-on-one to Peter in the office that Peter was being “unprofessional” in not attending the
November and December staff meetings or getting his marks in on time.
1. What is your opinion of the Peter’s professional conduct? Does the STF Code of Ethics
apply?
2. What is your opinion of the new and old principal’s legal position in terms of the Education
Act?
3. What is your opinion of the teacher’s position in terms of the duties of teachers in the
Education Act?

4. Case 4
Mary Pickford is a “character” as Senior English teacher in Moosetown Collegiate Institute. Her
students adore her for her creative teaching and the way she makes Shakespeare and Chaucer
“come alive” in the classroom. She is an expert in drama so will have the students memorize parts
in class so they can do mini dramas with costumes. One of the keys to her popularity is that she
always recruits the star hockey players in school for the choice parts in the school drama club She
has the “local gods” as she calls them featured in prominent roles. Mary always refers to these
players jokingly as ‘Meat heads” or “hockey idiots “ or “puck brains” but they invariably enjoy
the banter, know that she says all these things in jest, and that she is a “big marshmallow” who
truly enjoys male and female adolescents equally.
Ms. Pickford is renowned in the school for the way she makes jocular remarks about the male
students in class. She berates them when they don’t have their homework done, asks if they have
missing “genes” that explain their “dunderhead marks”, and accuses the “superior sex as having
inferior skills to women”. The male students enjoy this teasing and there has never been a
complaint from parents because they recognize her innovative teaching skills.
In the winter months, she often conducts rehearsals after school and often has 18- and 19-year-old
students in the drama club doing long rehearsals. Mary likes to go to the local lounge for a beer or
two to slake her thirst after these rehearsals. She will never invite the students to the lounge with
her, but they will often go themselves before going home And she will never continue her
discussions about drama productions with them, although they sometimes come up and ask her
questions about rehearsal times and such. She always keeps a “professional distance” from them
once the extra-curricular day is done. In fact, she often gives them a difficult time the next day in
class if their homework is not done, asking why she had encountered them in the “local
establishment” when they had a poetry assignment that was not done for handing in. A frequent
companion at the lounge is a local lawyer who is male, who knows Mary well socially, and who
enjoys Ms. Pickford’s so-called sexist” comments as a form of joking.
One day, an executive assistant of the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation has visited the school
to give a presentation on Equity in Education. After the day is over, Mary who is the local elected
counselor of the STF invites the STF executive assistant for a beer in the lounge after work. The
local lawyer joints there a table and a pitcher of beer is ordered. Mary begins to tease the lawyer
about “male-dom”, the “law is an ass” and about the “recessive gene” that all males must have.
The lawyer, while laughing, picks up the pitcher of beer and pours it over Mary’s head while the
STF executive assistant observes in shock.
1. What is your opinion of the Mary’s professional conduct? Does the STF Code of Ethics
apply?
2 What is your opinion of the lawyer’s position in terms of the Criminal Code?
4. What is your opinion of the teacher’s position in terms of the duties of teachers in the
Education Act?

5. Case 5
Mr. Dan Birkland is a forty-five year old married teacher with three sons who are all teenagers.
He is a strict but well respected mathematics teacher in Birch River High School and enjoys the
reputation of being an excellent teacher of Algebra to Grade 10 and 11 and 12 students. He has a
cabin at the lake and will often go there with his wife on weekends, leaving his fifteen, sixteen
and seventeen year old sons at home alone “to fend for themselves” because they play on school
hockey or basketball or volleyball teams which often have weekend tournaments. Mr. Birkland is
a “modern parent”. In fact, the sons will often share a beer or glass of wine with mom and dad at
supper.
The sons, however, are not as well respected in the small community, because they will often host
parties in his home on Saturday nights when mom and dad are not at home. At the parties,
marijuana is consumed, copious amounts of alcohol are splashed around, and adolescent couples
disappear into bedrooms. The house is invariably cleaned up on Sundays and Mr. Birkland either
does not know when he returns home or turns a blind eye to weekend events.
Mr. Birkland is very conscientious and will spend his weekday evenings in the family room
marking assignments and preparing lessons while watching television. Often, his sons’ high
school classmates will come over on Wednesday nights to play poker for quarters or small pots of
money from 8-11 pm in the adjacent dining room while Mr. Birkland works on his class
preparations in the family room. They will often go to the fridge and pull out a bottle of wine to
relax while playing poker while Dad is in the family room and Mrs. Birkland is puttering in the
kitchen.
One night, one of the son’s classmates named Jeff goes home about midnight from a Wednesday
night poker game in Mr. Birkland’s house. The classmate has consumed a bit too much wine and
has driven Jeff’s family’s car apparently inebriated from Mr. Birkland’s house after Dan has
gone to bed. Jeff is the son of a female school board member in the small town. Infuriated, Jeff’s
mother goes to the next school board meeting and makes a motion to terminate the contract of
Mr. Birkland as teacher in Birch River High school, saying that his house is “party central” and
corrupting the morals of the entire community.
1. What is your opinion of the Mr. Birkland’s professional conduct? Does the STF Code of
Ethics apply?
2 What is your opinion of the school board’s position in terms of the Education Act?
4. What is your opinion of the teacher’s position in terms of the duties of teachers in the
Education Act?