That’s because Michael “Joe” Healy, a longtime math and science teacher at Calgary’s Bishop Carroll High School, has been dead for more than 15 years. “I was angry and disappointed and then I was hurt. I was just very upset,” said Healy, who is a retired teacher herself. On September 1, the Alberta government plans to launch its first electronic registry of all teachers, principals and superintendents. The government says it will include the names of 162,000 teachers certified in the province since 1954, the type of certificate they hold and whether it is active, and information on any license suspensions or cancellations for unprofessional conduct or incompetence. The changes are part of House Bill 85, which the legislature passed last year. The government says the move is one of many changes that will increase the transparency of teacher discipline and improve safety for students. B.C., Saskatchewan and Ontario have similar online registries, but all three remove names from their registries when notified that a teacher has died. Alberta’s education minister says the registry will intentionally include dead teachers so the information is useful and relevant to Albertans. “If the secretary’s office has been notified that a teacher or teacher leader has died, their certificate will say ‘inactive,’” said Katharine Stavropolous, spokeswoman for Education Secretary Adriana LaGrange. The government sent 92,000 emails and 70,000 letters to certified teachers and leaders to inform them of the new register and tell them how they could request an exemption, he said. Stavropoulos said the letters were not intended to cause pain, but convey information. “We understand that remembering a lost loved one is often difficult and can trigger memories of their death and we sympathize with those who have had this experience after receiving a letter from us,” he said. Retired teacher Sel Healy received letters earlier this summer saying both she and her late husband, Michael J. Healy, would be included in Alberta’s new online teacher registry. Healy’s husband died in 2006 after a 32-year career at a Calgary Catholic school. (Submitted by Sel Healy) Healy says her long-gone husband has no place on that registry. The 32-year-old teacher, who wrote a 10-page poem to teach students about the history of atomic models and had colleagues sew when his science demonstrations went awry, has lived with cancer for more than a decade. He died unexpectedly at home in 2006 while having a glass of wine with his wife. She said receiving the teachers’ registry letter brought back the pain of that sudden loss. “It’s hard to remember. I talk about it easily, but it’s upsetting,” Healy said. “And I couldn’t understand why our own government didn’t know this person didn’t exist.”
Families are upset that they have no choice to remove their dead relatives
Janelle Melenchuk’s mother also received a letter, addressed to Melenchuk’s late father. He was a teacher and vice principal at Rimbey who retired in 2000 and died in 2019. Melenchuk, who is also a teacher in Red Deer, says if dead people are included, it raises questions about the government’s stated motivation for the database to protect the public from bad teachers. The letter to teachers, several copies of which were shared with the CBC, instructs teachers to log into an information system if they wish to request to be removed from the registry for legal or security reasons. Family members do not have access to it, Melenchuk said. “I don’t like that my dad doesn’t have the ability to say, ‘No thanks. I don’t want to be a part of that,” he said. The education ministry says exemptions will be “rare” and will be granted in cases where court orders prevent the release of the information or the teacher’s safety is at risk. Stavropoulos said the ministry is still evaluating citizens’ applications for exemptions and has yet to grant any. Any teacher who has applied for an exemption will be removed from the public list until the secretary makes a decision, he said. He did not say how many had applied. Family members can contact the secretary of Alberta Education to report a teacher as deceased or ask to apply for an exemption, he said. A Moose Jaw, Sask., woman was also surprised to learn her husband would be on the list. Gordon Jago last taught in Alberta in 1977, the year they moved to Moose Jaw, his wife Terry Jago said in an email. Gordon stopped teaching in 2007 and died in 2018. Not listed Saskatchewan Register of Professional Educators Regulatory Board. When Jago received the letter about Alberta’s teacher registry, she sent an email to the registrar asking that Gordon’s name be removed. He is concerned about potential identity theft and the accuracy of the information. She says the education ministry responded with a “strange and vague” message that left her unsure whether she would be included. “What disappoints me is that the Alberta government would consider him a registered teacher after 40 years of not teaching in Alberta,” she said. “Surely there is a re-enrollment process for someone who would be 73 this year?”
