B.C. teacher suspended after telling student they would end up ‘shot, dead or in a gang’

A BC teacher who lost his temper, called students “juvenile” and “slow,” and told a student they were going to end up “shot, dead, or in a gang,” has been suspended for three days.

According to an Oct. 6 BC Commissioner for Teacher Education decision, high school teacher Bruce Alistair McCloy had been warned by the school about his behaviour and ordered to take a “Learning to Be Anti-Racist” course, but continued losing his temper.

“McCloy failed to treat students with dignity and respect… (and) displayed a pattern of repeated inappropriate behaviour,” the Commissioner said in the decision.

The decision says McCloy was teaching English at a New Westminster high school in 2023 when he took a dislike to the way a student was laughing and told them they would “end up dead, shot, or in a gang.”

McCloy also had strict rules about using the bathroom during class and would write students’ names on the whiteboard if he allowed them to leave and banned others altogether.

After denying a student a bathroom break three times, McCloy wrote “NO” on the whiteboard.

In one instance, he took a student’s water bottle and threw it in the garbage after he saw the student playing with it.

“If you do this you are an idiot and you are doing this right now,” he told his students. He also asked why they were “acting stupid,” telling them they were not “trained dogs that answer to a bell.”

McCloy, who began teaching in 1988, was issued a Letter of Direction and Discipline, and told to take the anti-racist course.

However, the following year his behaviour continued.

On one occasion he slammed his hand on the whiteboard, and threw the whiteboard marker across the room, because more than one student had asked to use the washroom.

“McCloy made comments to students that they perceived as degrading, such as that their work was ‘juvenile,’ that they were ‘slow’ and that they shouldn’t be in the class if they didn’t understand the English language,” the decision reads.

He told students during a test that if he saw their phones, he would fail them, which was good because he didn’t want to mark the tests.

“McCloy yelled at students when they did not follow classroom rules,” the decision reads.

The school district suspended him for three days and told him to exercise good judgment and self-management when correcting a student’s behaviour.

McCloy later signed a consent agreement with the teaching regulator and accepted a further two-day suspension.

“McCloy failed to create a safe learning environment,” the regulator said.

He also has to complete a Creating a Positive Learning Environment course.