New teacher commissioner vows to work in province

The incoming teacher commissioner says she will fulfil her new duties on Manitoba soil and — as much as possible — from her government-assigned office.

Noni Classen has officially been named as the next government appointee in charge of investigating allegations of teacher misconduct and incompetence.

“It is a full-time job to be performed here in Manitoba,” Education Minister Tracy Schmidt said about the commissioner’s five-year contract.

Schmidt and Classen, a former resource teacher who has become a high-profile leader in the child protection sector, spoke with reporters at the legislature.

Classen is replacing the original commissioner, who left this spring after it was revealed she’d been working from Florida.

Once her job begins after the May long weekend, Classen said she will report to the Robert Fletcher Building on Portage Avenue. (The office is not open to the public.)

As the longtime director of education for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Classen has been among the most vocal critics of the registry she will now oversee.

Bobbi Taillefer, a francophone teacher with extensive experience in leadership roles at teachers unions, set up the new disciplinary process for teachers in January 2025.

Following Taillefer’s abrupt departure, veteran bureaucrat David Yeo was tapped to serve as acting commissioner.

PC education critic Wayne Ewasko endorsed the new appointment — which he suggested was “probably long overdue” — during a scrum after question period on Tuesday.

The former Progressive Conservative education minister introduced the legislation that established a regulatory body for the profession in 2023.

Schmidt said the commissioner’s mandate is being strengthened so Classen can provide a “systems-level perspective” and related advice to the government.

“An important part of the commissioner’s work is receiving complaints, investigating complaints,” the NDP minister said. “But it’s also looking to see if there are systemic issues going on within the education sector that are allowing for these sort of incidents to happen?”

Classen said there will be regular information-sharing between her arm’s-length office and the education department.

She has spent much of the last two decades researching child exploitation, developing prevention resources and calling for more transparency around teacher disciplinary processes in her home province.

In her new role, Classen said she wants to uncover “blind spots” in the new teacher disciplinary process.

She said she’s interested in broadening the registry to include limited teaching permit holders, in addition to certified teachers and school clinicians.

— with files from Gabrielle Piche

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

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Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie.

Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.