A BC Catholic school principal who bumped up a pupil’s final grade by 20 per cent has been suspended for two days.

According to a Sept. 9 BC Commissioner for Teacher Education decision, Roger Lionel Joseph DesLauriers increased an unnamed student’s mark from 56% to 76% without the subject teacher’s knowledge.

“DesLauriers’ conduct raises concerns regarding his ethics, professionalism and integrity and had the effect of treating students inequitably,” the teaching regulator said in the decision.

The BC Commissioner for Teacher Education went on to say that DesLauriers’ conduct failed to “model appropriate behaviour.”

“(DesLauriers) did not investigate or consider the student’s overall academic performance in relation to the learning outcomes for the subject class in determining the extent of the grade change,” the decision read.

The decision gave no indication as to why DesLauriers increased the student’s final grade or his motivation to do so.

The principal signed a consent agreement admitting to his behaviour, and along with the two-day suspension, will have to take a professional course on ethics.

DesLauriers has been teaching since 1988, and according to his LinkedIn account, he’s been the principal at Notre Dame Regional Secondary School in Vancouver since 2008.

It’s unclear how DesLauriers was caught, but the Catholic Independent Schools Vancouver Archdiocese reported him to the regulator in May 2024.

In handing out its punishment, the regulator found DesLauriers’ conduct was a single incident and not a pattern of behaviour, and he accepted responsibility for his actions.

No other details are given in the decision.