{"id":516795,"date":"2022-11-15T16:03:06","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T13:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/a-monster-in-the-classroom\/"},"modified":"2022-11-15T16:03:06","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T13:03:06","slug":"a-monster-in-the-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/a-monster-in-the-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"#A Monster in the Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2dc140eaa4e\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2dc140eaa4e\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/a-monster-in-the-classroom\/#%E2%80%9CA_Monster_in_the_Classroom%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;A Monster in the Classroom&#8221;<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CA_Monster_in_the_Classroom%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;A Monster in the Classroom&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Pretty, popular and precocious,<\/strong> Kelly Schneider was an \u201cit\u201d girl at Calgary\u2019s John Ware School, a junior high school in the city\u2019s suburban southwest. As the only child of working parents, she was unusually independent for her age, eager for the adults in her life to see her as mature and capable. That desire for <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>roval sometimes left her racked with self-doubt and anxiety, especially as she entered adolescence. \u201cBig boobs, big eyes, blonde hair,\u201d she recalls. \u201cBut I hated myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">By 1989, when she was 14, she had developed bulimia. That same year, too busy with her hectic <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> life to focus on her studies, she was held back to repeat Grade 8. The bright side? She\u2019d redo the year with Mr. Gregory\u2014or, as his colleagues thought of him, \u201cMr. Popularity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Michael Gregory wasn\u2019t the kind of teacher kids avoided in the halls. Rather, they fell into his orbit. When Schneider joined his homeroom, Gregory was in his mid-20s. He had taught for just three years\u2014math, <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/sciencee\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"5\" title=\"Science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">science<\/a> and outdoor education\u2014but had already developed a cult of personality as a relatable role model who could speak to kids in their own language. He sported hoodies and shorts in class, and was notorious for his raunchy humour and outrageous behaviour, which Schneider experienced firsthand as his new teacher\u2019s pet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">Gregory nicknamed Schneider \u201cCanyon Meadows\u201d\u2014a double entendre playing on her well-developed body and Meadows, her surname at the time. His attention wasn\u2019t just verbal, either. During one volleyball practice, she says, Gregory and a gym teacher carried her to the showers and drenched her, fully clothed. Another time, she says, he tossed a bikini top at her during an exam and teased her: \u201cNext time you\u2019re at my house, pick up after yourself.\u201d She was embarrassed and confused\u2014at that point, she hadn\u2019t been to his house\u2014but she was proud to think he might see her as more woman than girl. The confusion drew her closer to him, as she focused on earning his attention and avoiding his disappointment. With the benefit of 33 years of hindsight, Schneider now believes her poor self-esteem and rebellious spirit made her an easy mark for his advances\u2014including, soon enough, inappropriate touching.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">At first it was a hand on her shoulder in the halls, then a tender tap on her back while she cleaned chalkboards, and eventually a stroke of her leg as she sat in his truck, making runs to Mountain Equipment Co-op to buy supplies for his outdoor-education program.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Gregory lived in Haysboro, a neighbourhood not far from John Ware School. Because he kept outdoor-ed equipment at home, he had an excuse to bring students there, including Schneider. The first time she peered into his personal life, her body tingled. <i>There\u2019s his couch<\/i>, she thought. <i>There\u2019s his kitchen. Those are the stairs to his bedroom. There\u2019s his wife\u2019s high heels by the <\/i><span class=\"s3\"><i>front door. <\/i>That confused her, because Greg<\/span>ory had given her the impression he was getting a divorce. \u201cShe needs to get those cleared out when she leaves,\u201d she recalls him saying. The situation felt <span class=\"s2\">sneaky, too personal, yet it was exhilarating<\/span> to imagine her crush going somewhere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Schneider began spending much more of her free time with Gregory. \u201cI definitely thought that I was his girlfriend,\u201d she says. <span class=\"s2\">She can\u2019t recall when they first had sex; she\u2019s blocked those memories. But occasionally<\/span> she finds her day-to-day life interrupted by a flash of memory: his bare skin, or the smell of his body, especially when she hears the John Denver songs he played when they were together.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">Her doubts about the relationship began to grow when he asked her to go to a Gor<\/span>don Lightfoot concert with him, presenting her with the tickets on his desk. She had no idea what kind of excuse she\u2019d have to make to dress up and leave her house at night to go out with her teacher. She couldn\u2019t bring herself to lie to her parents, but felt he was pushing her to do so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Though she doesn\u2019t recall exactly how the relationship began, she remembers clearly how it ended, in Grade 9. One day, while dropping her at home, Gregory asked to speak with her parents alone. She had no idea what he might want to talk to them about, but they went inside and he spoke to her parents while she waited in the kitchen.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">After he left, her parents were visibly upset. They wouldn\u2019t say what he\u2019d told them, but she had a feeling it wasn\u2019t true. She went to her room and filled a cardboard box with gifts from Gregory, which she\u2019d been hiding, including jewellery, mixtapes and a poetry collection bookmarked with a childhood picture of him. She returned to the living room and told a watered-down version of the truth: that she was in a romantic relationship with her teacher.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Gregory, it turned out, had lied to her parents, saying she\u2019d been bringing boys home during lunch hour for sex. Schneider thinks he sensed her growing doubts and hoped to muddy her credibility with a fake story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Schneider\u2019s parents believed her and brought the box of mementoes to school. A senior administrator took their complaint. Schneider doesn\u2019t know if Gregory got to him first\u2014and this person didn\u2019t respond to my requests for comment\u2014but she recalls that the man implied she was a liar. \u201cYour daughter has quite the imagination,\u201d the administrator allegedly said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"longform-fwimg-container\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/calgary-abuse-schoolboard-predatory-schoolboard-e1668195362765.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kelly Schneider was only 14 when Gregory began grooming her for abuse. She says that when she and her parents complained to school administrators, no action was taken. For years she believed she was Gregory\u2019s only victim; now she suspects that she was only the first. (Photography by Allison Seto)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Schneider never found out whether the <\/span>administrator<span class=\"s2\"> shared the complaint with school officials. Her parents, meanwhile, didn\u2019t know where else to go but to the police, and they asked their daughter if she wanted to do so\u2014an unfair burden to put on a 15-year-old, who feared her friends would turn on her for having their favourite teacher arrested. She said no, but rumours that she was responsible for getting Mr. Gregory in trouble spread anyway. Even after the school moved her out of Gregory\u2019s classes, she still had to face her abuser in the halls and hear others talk about him\u2014and about <i>him and her<\/i>\u2014constantly. Schneider moved on, the way victims of sexual abuse often do. She downplayed it to herself and to anyone else: denial as coping. Eventually she moved to a different school, and the <\/span>memories faded. On the rare occasion some<span class=\"s2\">thing triggered them, Schneider reassured herself that at least there were no other victims: \u201cI thought I was the only one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">She wasn\u2019t. For years to come, according <span class=\"s3\">to Calgary police and dozens of former <\/span>students, Gregory would exploit children at John Ware with impunity. Timothy Fitzgibbon, the Calgary police detective in charge of the case, says that Schneider is the first known victim of an as-yet-undetermined num<span class=\"s3\">ber. In November of 2021, three former students, including Schneider, filed a class-action lawsuit against the Calgary Board of Education, alleging the board failed to protect children in its care from Gregory\u2019s predation. \u201cHe almost always had an active victim, and at least one more he was grooming at the same time,\u201d says Fitzgibbon. As of this writing, 27 more former students have joined the suit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Based on witness testimonies, Fitzgibbon believes Gregory may have sexually, emotionally or physically abused as many as 200 students. If he\u2019s right, that would make Gregory one of the most prolific serial abusers in modern Canadian educational history\u2014and one who operated in plain sight, entrusted with his victims\u2019 care, for more than 15 years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>Raised in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains<\/strong>, Michael Andreassen Gregory studied education at the University of Calgary, cultivating a mountain-man persona as an expert hiker, canoer and camper. John Ware School hired him after he graduated in 1986\u2014at the time, public schools were eager to catch up to the environmental and outdoor-studies programs offered in private schools, and Gregory had free rein to create an outdoor curriculum, including field <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">trip<\/a>s to the Rockies. His outdoor-ed program became a draw for the school, attracting students from across the city.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1241716\" style=\"width: 2247px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"wp-image-1241716 size-full lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/gregory-schoolteacher-resting-predatory-abuse.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2237\" height=\"1335\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gregory often brought students on camping and canoeing trips to the Rocky Mountains as part of his outdoor- education curriculum.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p3\">Gregory was soon asked to join John Ware\u2019s administration team, providing input on hiring, event planning and other school-wide concerns. The position earned him a lot of latitude, as did his readiness with flattery. A retired teacher from John Ware, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, says Gregory always found something to praise. \u201cBy the time you walked away, you felt like you must be queen of the world,\u201d she says. \u201cHe was always working people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">To many colleagues, however, there were signs from the start that something was wrong with Gregory. Music teacher Trudy Fossey, who worked across the hall from him between 1988 and 2005, found him creepy. He kept his classroom door closed, obscured its window with paper and spoke to children with locker-room banter. Former students describe his classrooms as lax at best, a circus at worst. Classes broke <span class=\"s3\">into horseplay, with Gregory wrestling stu<\/span>dents to the ground, and his reputation for shock humour normalized behaviour impossible to imagine occurring today: he might unclip a girl\u2019s bra as a prank, or duct-tape a student to a tree.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">But Gregory was tolerated as a youthful maverick who related to teens on a deeper level. He drove kids around in his own vehicle, took them on unsanctioned <span class=\"s3\">camping weekends, and invited former stu<\/span>dents, who had graduated to high school, to return as volunteer field trip supervisors. In 1991, he bought an acreage outside the city\u2014a large property with a blue bungalow at the end of a long, secluded driveway, protected by a wire fence. Gregory purchased the property with his wife, the one he told students he was divorcing. Colleagues also found it strange that he never spoke about Mrs. Gregory, or invited her to work gatherings. \u201cFor a while I thought, <i>Does he actually have a wife?<\/i>\u201d<i> s<\/i>ays the retired teacher.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1241717\" style=\"width: 1100px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"wp-image-1241717 size-full lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/michael-gregory-headshot-e1668454061593.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1090\" height=\"1145\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A yearbook illustration of Gregory, who often supplied caricatures instead of photographs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p3\">Gregory didn\u2019t seem to have friends his own age, either. Instead of grabbing drinks with colleagues at the local pub on Fridays, he hung out with students. But his transgressions never seemed extreme enough to prompt action, and few colleagues bothered confronting him. The anonymous retired teacher did talk to him about his innuendo with students, following the rules of the teacher\u2019s union, which stipulated that teachers must raise issues with colleagues before approaching school administration. \u201cFrom a predator\u2019s perspective,\u201d she says, \u201cit\u2019s a perfect situation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Gregory assured her he\u2019d stop making inappropriate comments\u2014and at least within earshot of her, he did.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>G<span class=\"s2\">regory selected his favourites <\/span><\/strong><span class=\"s2\">from <\/span>the cool kids: outgoing, athletic boys and girls with a streak of rebellion. He steered the girls away from their age-appropriate crushes, plying them with favours and gifts including driving lessons, mixtapes and CDs full of suggestive songs (Van Halen\u2019s \u201cHot for Teacher,\u201d for example). He often took an interest in students just as they needed an adult confidant\u2014when dealing with divorcing parents or hurtful rumours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Jocelyn Alice, a student from 1998 to 2001, was one of those girls. She says that her difficult home life provided an opportunity for grooming, allowing Gregory to exploit her emotional vulnerabilities. As a teenage musician and performer, Alice also felt insecure about her weight and body. She <\/span>believes Gregory took advantage of that as well, reeling her in with reassurances that she was beautiful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"longform-pullquote\">He plied girls with gifts, including mixtapes full of suggestive songs, like Van Halen\u2019s \u201cHot For Teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">He tested girls\u2019 comfort with undressing while camping and canoeing, suggesting they change from dirty clothes to clean ones. In the summer before Grade 9, Kelly Schneider accompanied Gregory and some boys from school on a long hike to scout locations for potential field trips. Afterwards, as the boys piled into the back of Gregory\u2019s truck and Schneider climbed into the passenger side, she complained about being sweaty. Gregory tossed her a clean shirt. She acted blas\u00e9 as she removed her top to change, but she knew that a line was being crossed. It seemed as if Gregory was signalling to the boys that she was off limits, willing to undress for him.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Other times, he\u2019d badger girls into exposing their breasts on a canoe ride, which he did to Alice. One student, who I\u2019ll call Sonya to protect her privacy, attended his camping trips as a junior-high student in the early 2000s. She says she can\u2019t remember an excursion when he <i>didn\u2019t<\/i> suggest nudity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Several victims say that girls who didn\u2019t accept his dare were \u201ciced out\u201d\u2014uninvited from trips and taunted with his cryptic insult, \u201cATNA\u201d (all talk, no action). If they acquiesced, his predation quickened, especially during those outdoors adventures.<b> <\/b>Sonya even witnessed one such girl, aged 14 or 15, perform oral sex on Gregory in a tent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Gregory zeroed in on Sonya herself when she was 13. One of his first questions to her was when she would turn 14\u2014she says he said something like, \u201cYou\u2019ll be spend<\/span>ing a lot more time with me after that.\u201d (Canada\u2019s age of consent at the time was 14, though of course this didn\u2019t apply to teacher-child relationships.) He got closer to Sonya after learning she was adopted, telling her that he was too, something she now believes was a lie. He professed his love to her regularly. Sonya says he abused her almost daily in 2001, even during class, molesting her behind his desk under the pretence of helping with schoolwork.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">If a girl turned him down, Gregory might gossip about her. Once, when Jocelyn Alice refused to ride topless in his canoe, Gregory made sure she knew he\u2019d be staying overnight in Sonya\u2019s tent. \u201cHe was very specific about pitting us against each other,\u201d she says. \u201cHe would talk shit to her about me, and vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">A woman named Danielle\u2014who asked me not to reveal her surname\u2014attended John Ware from 1999 to 2002. She says Gregory was a skilled social manipulator, controlling her friendships and alienating her from girls who she now understands were also victims. Danielle, now 34, is a junior-high teacher in Calgary. She recognizes how easy it was for Gregory to read teenagers\u2019 body language to prey on insecurities. In school, she was nerdier than her peers, and she couldn\u2019t hide her embarrassment when he commented on students\u2019 bodies: \u201cHe picked up on it and kind of circled his way to me.\u201d The more vulnerable she was with Gregory, the more he opened up, eventually sharing that his wife was leaving him\u2014a lie he\u2019d told for over a decade by that point.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Gregory\u2019s deceit knew no bounds. Starting around 2000, he began saying he had prostate cancer. Students were wrecked by the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a>. At one point he told kids that the cancer had metastasized to his brain, requiring a high-risk procedure involving the removal of his nose. (He took several weeks off and, miraculously, returned in fine shape, save for a bandage.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">He also used his self-proclaimed cancer to procure sexual favours. He convinced students that orgasms were necessary for pain relief and that he was unable to achieve them with his estranged wife. He persuaded some students that he\u2019d written them into his will. To give girls a taste of what they would supposedly inherit, he\u2019d take them for joyrides in sports cars around his acreage, to see land he said he\u2019d sold to developers for millions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Meanwhile, he raged at boys in his classes if they clashed with him. The statement of claim in the lawsuit filed against the Calgary Board of Education last year alleges that he once rubbed a boy\u2019s face in manure; though the boy\u2019s parents reported the incident to school officials, no action was taken. Two boys say they confronted him about his sexual impropriety with students, and he responded by threatening violence. Another student, Cody Bonkowsky, said he twice brought concerns to a school guidance counsellor, once after witnessing Gregory share a change room with girls. In both instances, the counsellor assured Bonkowsky they\u2019d look into the matter, but to the best of his knowledge, nothing ever came of it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>I\u00a0spoke to many of Gregory\u2019s former students<\/strong> and colleagues for this story and read hundreds of pages of legal documents. They revealed that parents of at least five students, beginning with Kelly Schneider\u2019s, complained to school staff about Gregory between 1991 and 2004. In each instance, complainants say the <span class=\"s3\">claims were minimized or dismissed. None of them seem to have been informed that they had the option to escalate their complaints above the school to the Alberta Teachers\u2019 Association, or ATA, the teachers\u2019 union and professional body that regulates conduct for Alberta teachers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Incredibly, Gregory\u2019s abuse coincided with a moment of heightened scrutiny of teachers in Canada. In 1996, an Ontario court convicted teacher Ken DeLuca of sexually assaulting 13 girls in elementary and high schools over two decades. His trial revealed systemic failures at multiple schools, where colleagues dismissed accusations and rumours. The case prompted Ontario to overhaul its teacher disciplinary process, transferring responsibilities from the teachers\u2019 union to an independent body. At the time, few provinces used an independent disciplinary process. They all followed suit\u2014except Alberta and Manitoba.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">And whereas DeLuca was quietly transferred between schools, Gregory never left John Ware. He continued selecting victims from the same school, grooming them in front of the same colleagues, for years.<b> <\/b>It\u2019s unusual for any teacher to remain at one institution for an entire career, but Gregory seemed protected at John Ware, and he knew it. \u201cHe bragged about having dirt on the school,\u201d says Sonya.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">One former student and victim, named Alicia, recalls several instances that should have given teachers cause to report Gregory to school administration. She says a guidance counsellor once caught her sitting in Gregory\u2019s lap, alone in his class. The guidance counsellor allegedly said, \u201cI\u2019ll give you two a minute,\u201d and left. On another occasion, a teacher remained silent after witnessing Gregory grope Alicia\u2019s backside. Two other accusers allege that <span class=\"s2\">the same teacher ignored Gregory\u2019s sex<\/span>ual misconduct. (The teacher, who still works at the school, did not respond to my requests for comment.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"longform-pullquote\">Gregory began claiming he had prostate cancer and told students that orgasms were necessary for his pain relief.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Between 1986 and 2003, Gregory was only reported twice to the ATA. Neither complaint involved sexual wrongdoing, and both investigations ended without a hearing. One reason teachers rarely reported him is probably the onerous process they have to navigate when making such complaints.<b> <\/b>The ATA explicitly states that teachers must first raise issues with the colleague in question. If the issue still persists, they must provide the subject of the complaint with a written copy of the misconduct report, and only then submit the report to administrators.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">ATA members are allowed to go above their school\u2019s administration altogether and escalate issues straight to the ATA without notifying the subject of the complaint, or the school. But teachers I spoke to didn\u2019t know they had that option. Most were also unaware that members of the public, such as parents, could report misconduct to the ATA. All of which meant that a disciplinary case against Gregory was incredibly unlikely, unless a colleague caught him in some undeniably criminal act, or police arrested him\u2014something Gregory said he\u2019d never let happen. \u201cHe told me all the time that if things went bad he was going to kill himself,\u201d says Sonya. \u201cHe didn\u2019t want anyone else to win.\u201d The longer he got away with it, the bolder he became. At one point in the early 2000s, Gregory was abusing at least seven girls between the ages of 14 and 16, and grooming more. He made it clear to each that there would be catastrophic consequences if they told anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong>Eryn MacKenzie\u2019s abuse began with a secret.<\/strong> In 2000, when she was in Grade 8, Gregory found out through another student that she was throwing up meals and cutting herself. Instead of taking her to a guidance counsellor, Gregory used the knowledge to draw her closer, with a \u201ctreatment\u201d that required her to take lunch in his classroom alone, where he would check her arms, hands and ankles for cuts and ensure she kept meals down. Over the next two years, Gregory positioned himself as her only true confidant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Even though MacKenzie had started junior high with a pack of friends, Gregory encouraged her to distance herself from all of them. What she didn\u2019t know is that many of those girls were also victims. He led her to believe that her childhood best friend\u2014Danielle, the girl who became a junior high teacher\u2014was jealous and two-faced; that Alicia, the girl the guidance counsellor had caught in Gregory\u2019s lap<\/span>, was <span class=\"s2\">a bad influence; <\/span><span class=\"s3\">and that Cody Bonkowsky, one of her oldest friends, was mentally dis<\/span>turbed. Gregory also encouraged MacKenzie to be more intimate with her boyfriend, but once she was, he belittled the boy both privately and in class, convincing MacKenzie he was a \u201csissy.\u201d She broke up with him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Gregory instead nudged MacKenzie to become closer to another girl; I\u2019ll call her Amber to protect her identity. Amber was a year younger, and Gregory would often spend weekends with the two girls together. By 2003, Gregory had begun spending time with Amber and MacKenzie separately, seeing them on different days. When he spent more time with Amber, MacKenzie felt left out. At the same time, she also felt a growing unease about her relationship with Gregory. One evening on the family computer, MacKenzie fired up MSN Messenger. Gregory, she told Amber, had confessed that MacKenzie aroused him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cWhat are you talking about? That\u2019s gross. That\u2019s wrong,\u201d<i> <\/i>Amber wrote in the chat box. MacKenzie panicked and immediately called Gregory. When she didn\u2019t get through, she started thinking about how to soften the news he\u2019d inevitably hear from Amber, that she\u2019d revealed their secret. She texted him, confessing that she\u2019d told Amber about the relationship, and suggested that if they were honest, people would understand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cNo one would understand,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cMaybe this isn\u2019t right,\u201d she replied.<i> \u201c<\/i>I\u2019m going to tell my parents.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"longform-fwimg-container\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Michael-Gregory-abuse-teacher-predation-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/div>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cThat\u2019s when he got angry,\u201d she says. According to MacKenzie, Gregory told her he\u2019d drive to the mountains and shoot himself if word ever got out. To make his point clear, he sent her a picture of a handgun. She begged him not to hurt himself. He said one or the other of them should \u201cgo <span class=\"s3\">away,\u201d and MacKenzie volunteered. Greg<\/span>ory agreed: \u201cIt should be you.\u201d That night, MacKenzie swallowed<b> <\/b>pills and wrote a letter to her family. But she soon regretted what she\u2019d done. She made herself vomit and crawled into bed. A text from Gregory awaited her in the morning: \u201cu alive?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">She spent the rest of the school year trying to put distance between herself and Gregory. Occasionally, he\u2019d text \u201chow r u?\u201d \u201cmiss u,\u201d and \u201cchecking in.\u201d She mostly ignored him. She still felt a confusing sense of protectiveness toward him, but she also felt better the further she got from him. Graduating from John Ware helped, but she knew that Amber, a year behind, would join her the following year, bringing the memories flooding back. She transferred to a different school altogether for Grade 11. After high school she moved to Lethbridge, where her brother and mom lived. She began to believe she could put it all behind her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><strong><span class=\"s3\">B<\/span><span class=\"s3\">y 2002, Gregory\u2019s behaviour\u2014<\/span><span class=\"s2\">always peculiar to other teachers\u2014<\/span><\/strong><span class=\"s3\"><strong>had become erratic.<\/strong> Perhaps it was the relentless mental labour of juggling so many false narratives to deceive his colleagues and his multiple victims. Some colleagues chalked up his strange behaviour to his medical condition, though several teachers had become convinced that his cancer was a charade. Sources told me that during a short medical leave in February of 2002, a colleague called Gregory\u2019s house to check on him and spoke to his wife. She seemed confused and denied that her husband had cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"longform-fwimg-container\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/calgary-abuse-teacher-victim-abuse-e1668195326918.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gregory spent months grooming Jocelyn Alice. She says that after she resisted his advances, he manipulated her relationships and gossiped about her. In 2020, she began working with another victim, who did not want to be identified, to bring Gregory\u2019s abuses to light. (Photography by Allison Seto)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">Due to Gregory\u2019s supposed terminal ill<\/span>ness, the school recruited a young rising star in the Calgary Board of Education as an alternate outdoor education teacher. Within weeks of arriving in September of 2003, the new teacher accompanied Gregory on an outdoor-ed trip to Kananaskis Country, a conservation and recreation area in the foothills of the Rockies, between Calgary and Banff. He felt uncomfortable with the way his senior colleague spoke to student leaders over the radio phones; Gregory joked that one female supervisor \u201cliked it in the rear.\u201d He grew even more suspicious after Gregory set up his tent so <span class=\"s3\">close to students\u2019 that they appeared con<\/span>nected from end-to-end. And he was outright alarmed when he discovered a girl in Gregory\u2019s tent with him. According to sources familiar with the incident, that girl was his former student Amber, who had moved on to high school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Following the ATA\u2019s code of conduct, the younger teacher informed Gregory that he planned to report the incident to school administration. Gregory cornered <span class=\"s3\">him, reportedly saying, \u201cBe careful; I know a lot of people.\u201d The complaint went ahead, but no action was taken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">In late 2003, Gregory took an extended medical leave, during which his position as science administration leader transferred to the younger teacher. Gregory returned three months later and began to bully his replacement, undermining him with colleagues and students. In March of 2004, the younger teacher reported that behaviour to the ATA, triggering an investigation into whether the bullying violated the<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">association\u2019s code of conduct. The complaint moved slowly, but it opened Gregory up to deeper scrutiny as colleagues began taking more active notice of his outrageous behaviour.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Things came to a head the next year, in May of 2005, during a weekend canoe and camping trip, when a female teacher noticed that Amber was on edge. The teacher approached Amber on the last day of the trip and, after some probing, learned that Gregory had been coercing her and a friend to meet him alone all weekend. Amber showed the teacher alarming texts Gregory sent her during the trip, including one containing a photo of a gun, which he presumably had with him. The messages suggested he\u2019d use the weapon on himself if the girls didn\u2019t join him. According to statements later written by the teenagers in an incident report to the John Ware school officials, they agreed to meet Gregory at the river flats, where he enticed them into a canoe with alcohol. He said it would relax them after he\u2019d scared them with his suicidal threats.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Out in the wilderness, the teacher informed her colleagues and called the principal, who instructed them to confiscate Gregory\u2019s keys to the school. He refused to hand them over and blamed his erratic behaviour on the side effects of his supposed cancer medication. The students and teachers were left in the middle of a provincial park with Gregory, and their canoes were the only way back to the school bus and their cars. The teacher devised a plan to separate Gregory from students and female trip leaders, sending him to his car in a canoe with older males.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Gregory didn\u2019t show up to work that Monday, but he was soon back in touch with Amber and her friend, pressuring them not to mention the gun and the alcohol in their statements to the school. They complied. Approximately 10 weeks later, the ATA received incident reports and statements regarding the camping trip. Only then did Brenda Haubrich, the investigator assigned to the lesser misconduct case brought in 2004, expand the file to include the more serious allegations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">As the inquiry heated up, Gregory\u2019s ATA membership lapsed, effectively ending his employment, since membership is required to teach in Alberta public schools. Haubrich, meanwhile, interviewed several former John Ware students, including Amber and her friend. Questioned separately, neither admitted to a sexual relationship with Gregory. One of the other students was Eryn MacKenzie.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<div class=\"longform-fwimg-container\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Canon-0483-Edit-e1668195390228.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gregory positioned himself as Eryn MacKenzie\u2019s closest confidant, systematically alienating her from friends. He eventually suggested she kill herself in order to protect his secret. (Photography by Lindsay Elliot, hair and makeup by Nadia Hoecklin)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p3\"><strong><span class=\"s2\">A<\/span><\/strong><span class=\"s2\"><strong>t the time of the inquiry<\/strong>, MacKenzie was 18. The last thing she wanted was to answer interview questions that would dredge up traumatic memories. She agreed to an interview only on the condition that her brother be present. Then, just days before their meeting, Gregory called to ask whether she\u2019d been contacted by the ATA\u2014and why? MacKenzie told him what she suspected, that Haubrich wanted to discuss their relationship. Gregory sounded confused. Had something happened between them? Had he ever hurt her? The cancer medication, he said, had punctured his memories with blackouts.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1241728\" style=\"width: 613px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1241728 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Scan-May-26-2022-at-12.52-PM-page-12.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"603\" height=\"850\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gregory eventually suggested Eryn Mackenzie kill herself in order to protect his secret.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">His act was so convincing that even MacKenzie began to wonder if she\u2019d misremembered, and whether Haubrich would believe her. As far as MacKenzie knew, the investigation was largely about her, which meant any allegation would be her word against Gregory\u2019s. At the interview, Haubrich confirmed she was looking into allegations about her and Gregory. She didn\u2019t specify what those allegations were. Haubrich didn\u2019t respond to my interview requests, but according to MacKenzie, their conversation led her to conclude that she was at the centre of the inquiry. The pressure was suffocating. Worried she was in trouble, she became defensive. \u201cI focused only on the good things that Gregory did in my life,\u201d she says, \u201cthat he helped me with my self-harm and eating disorder and introduced me to canoeing.\u201d Haubrich didn\u2019t seem to buy it, and said as much in a follow-up call. MacKenzie maintained her story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"longform-pullquote\">One by one, the women shared their agonizing secrets with each other. For the first time, they didn\u2019t have to suffer silently.\u00a0&#13;\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">In the end, the ATA couldn\u2019t corroborate rumours of abuse with the alleged victims. The association did, however, find strong evidence of grooming and sexual harassment, plus a litany of violent and humiliating offences spanning more than a decade, such as throwing animal feces at students and force-feeding his own belly-button hair to another. Gregory pleaded guilty on two charges: mistreating students and dishonouring his profession. The ATA suspended his membership for two years and asked the minister of education to suspend his licence, <\/span><span class=\"s1\">which would prevent him from working in <\/span><span class=\"s2\">any Alberta school. He was officially decertified in May of 2006, one year after the camping trip meltdown.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">Around the same time, he started a new <\/span>landscaping business and began hiring for<span class=\"s2\">mer students, including MacKenzie. He told them the ATA had no evidence against him. Rather, Gregory said he willingly resigned <\/span>from teaching because the investigation dam<span class=\"s2\">aged his reputation. And he continued his cancer charade. According to some students, John Ware School used the same excuse to explain his sudden absence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Years passed. Staff turned over. Students started <span class=\"s1\">families of their own in farther-flung suburbs, never to walk John Ware\u2019s halls again. When the school held a 50th-anniversary celebration in 2019, <\/span>Michael Gregory was, for most, just a face in a picture frame.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><strong>H<\/strong><span class=\"s1\"><strong>is victims didn\u2019t have the luxury of forgetting<\/strong>. Their abuser loomed as they pursued careers in law, cosmetology, health care, art and education; and as they lived very different lives across Canada and the U.S., with seemingly little in common but their specific trauma. He loomed as they struggled with relationships, teen pregnancy, poverty, parenting and trust. He loomed as they battled the psychological and physical effects of sexual violence: PTSD, suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, self-harm, substance abuse.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Jocelyn Alice was haunted by the knowledge that the first person who saw her breasts was her teacher, when he forcefully removed her top during a canoe ride. Because she refused to go along with it, Alice was spared further abuse\u2014or \u201ciced out\u201d\u2014but she suspected that Gregory had inflicted much worse on others. Sixteen years later, Alice was an accomplished singer-songwriter, living in Los Angeles. All around her, Hollywood\u2019s reckoning with serial predators was palpable, and the #MeToo movement gave her hope.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1241729\" style=\"width: 853px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"wp-image-1241729 size-full lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/IMG_5813-e1668454285434.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"843\" height=\"929\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gregory spent months grooming Jocelyn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\">She moved back to Calgary in 2019. That <span class=\"s1\">fall, she played an outdoor music and food festival, and after her set, she mixed with the crowd to bask in the warm hometown reception. That\u2019s when she saw Sonya for the first time since school. Before exchanging a word, she could tell that Sonya had the same thing on her mind. \u201cWe just knew, <i>we knew<\/i>, that we\u2019d survived something rare and painful together,\u201d she says. Little by little, over texts, phone calls and drinks, Sonya spilled her secrets, things that were worse than Alice imagined. \u201cShe didn\u2019t know how deep it went with me,\u201d says Sonya.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">They began brainstorming how to expose Gregory, even devising a plan to confront him at his home. In the summer of 2020, they decided the best path was to go through the media. When Alice brought the story to Nancy Hixt, the host of Global\u2019s <i>Crime Beat<\/i> podcast, the journalist instead directed her to the Calgary Police\u2019s sexual assault investigative unit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">It took a lot of convincing for Sonya to give a police statement; she wasn\u2019t sure she trusted the legal system to handle the case properly. She provided enough, however, for Detective Timothy Fitzgibbon to open an investigation, and to begin finding more victims and witnesses. One by one, they shared their agonizing secrets with him and with each other, realizing for the first time that they didn\u2019t have to suffer silently.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Once police had six victims solidly identified, Fitzgibbon sent out search and arrest warrants for Gregory at his acreage. They took him into custody in February of 2021, laying 17 sex-related charges. The women braced for the fallout. MacKenzie recalls former classmates and teachers suddenly <span class=\"s1\">messaging her, admitting long-standing suspicions about her relationship with Gregory. Her childhood best friend, Dan<\/span>ielle, got in touch to say that she too was a victim. They realized their abuser hadn\u2019t just inflicted harm on them, but on their close friends, and that he\u2019d strategically pitted the girls against one other to silence them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">It all came as a total shock to Kelly Schneider, by then in her late 40s, who learned about the arrest in a text message from an old friend.<b> <\/b>She still thought she was his only victim, but now believes she may only have been his first. After reading her friend\u2019s text, she showed it to her husband, who knew about her abuse. \u201cHe\u2019s going to kill himself,\u201d she said after a long silence. \u201cHe was all about control,\u201d she told me later. \u201cThat was the last thing he would be able to control.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The courts decided Gregory wasn\u2019t a threat to the public and released him with conditions, pending a court appearance. Sure enough, five days after his arrest, he killed himself on Quadra Island, off the west coast of British Columbia, where he had a vacation property<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">For some victims, his death came as a relief. They\u2019d never have to face their monster at trial. For others, it was just Gregory once again getting away with his crimes. <\/span>MacKenzie started a support group on Face<span class=\"s2\">book and eventually found Schneider. She was gutted to learn that her older counterpart had come forward about Gregory when MacKenzie herself was just a toddler. How would her own life have turned out differently, she wondered, had people believed Schneider all those years ago?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><strong>After Gregory\u2019s suicide<\/strong>, it became <span class=\"s3\">obvious that he\u2019d benefited from a <\/span>culture of apathy\u2014or worse, complicity. By then, police had 17 complainants, 35 witnesses and a growing number of former students reporting that they\u2019d noticed red flags. Soon, police turned their attention to the liability of third parties. Crown counsel determined that the Calgary Board of Education and the ATA weren\u2019t criminally accountable\u2014though Fitzgibbon, who has examined the ATA\u2019s internal case file from the 2005 investigation, says the association had at that time collected evidence to support a criminal investigation of sexual exploitation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"longform-pullquote\">At the heart of the school board\u2019s defence is that it owes no duty of care to the children who attended its school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The ATA\u2019s executive secretary, Dennis Theobald, says if the association handled the case today, it would have immediately engaged police: \u201cWe\u2019re committed to improving, and that\u2019s a process that\u2019s been under way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">The association\u2019s handling of the case has received criticism from students, former colleagues, Alberta\u2019s education minister and even former premier Jason Kenney. Some have blamed rigid workers\u2019 rights enshrined in the ATA code of conduct for protecting Gregory from more scrutiny.<b> <\/b>Theobald nonetheless defends the association, saying that the main problem is school officials misunderstanding or ignoring their profession\u2019s disciplinary process and not reporting the misconduct in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">It\u2019s too late now for improvements to the ATA procedure. On January 1, 2023, the newly formed Alberta Teaching Profession Commission will begin addressing teachers\u2019 conduct and disciplinary matters, finally taking them out of the hands of the teachers\u2019 union. Education Minister Adriana LaGrange proposed the change in March of this year, specifically citing the ATA\u2019s failure to report the Gregory case.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The provincial government has been silent about the school board\u2019s accountability in the Gregory affair. The commission is developing a new, unified code of conduct for Alberta\u2019s roughly 50,000 teachers and principals, which will require education professionals to report to police any suspected harm to children caused by a teacher.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In November of 2021, MacKenzie and Schneider, along with Cody Bonkowsky, filed a $40-million class-action lawsuit against the Calgary Board of Education and the estate of Michael Gregory. (The estate\u2019s executor is Gregory\u2019s widow, who declined my interview requests through a lawyer.) As of this writing, 30 men and women have claimed damages for alleged negligence on the part of the school board. The class members have provided evidence that the board, which is today responsible for 125,000 children, failed to protect those in its care. They allege that, despite repeated complaints and common knowledge of Gregory\u2019s fireable behaviour, John Ware School promoted him to administration, giving him more control over students.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">School board officials declined multiple interview requests, and the board itself refused to comment beyond a brief statement: \u201cThe Calgary Board of Education takes the allegations very seriously.\u201d More than 20 board employees, including all seven elected school trustees and chief superintendent Christopher Usih, ignored my messages or redirected them to a media liaison, who requested that I stop asking employees questions and emailed <i>Maclean\u2019s<\/i> editor-in-chief to \u201creinforce\u201d the message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Several plaintiffs also told me that in pre-trial cross-examination, the board\u2019s lawyers seemed to be attempting to discredit them. Mathew Farrell, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, says the board\u2019s lawyers questioned their motivations for agreeing to interviews for this article, insinuating the women were looking to use media attention for monetary gain.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">While the board wouldn\u2019t comment on its strategy, its statement of defence makes it plain: to erect a <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">series<\/a> of ever-<\/span>higher barriers for complainants to hurdle.<span class=\"s1\"> It begins with a blanket denial of \u201ceach and every allegation.\u201d If allegations are proven, the board\u2019s defence is that it was ignorant of Gregory\u2019s actions and that the abuses occurred outside of its supervision. If that too is disproven, the statement claims that the victims suffered no losses or damages. And so on. At the heart of the defence is that the board owes no duty of care to the children who attended its school, and who were victimized by its employee, for years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The goal appears to be to exhaust the plaintiffs and reach an out-of-court settlement, a common outcome for civil sexual assault suits.\u00a0Since the #MeToo movement began in 2017, the number of school-related sexual abuse cases reported has nearly doubled, according to a recent report by the\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/protectchildren.ca\/en\/resources-research\/school-report\/?utm_campaign=sl&amp;utm_term=\/school-report\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/protectchildren.ca\/en\/resources-research\/school-report\/?utm_campaign%3Dsl%26utm_term%3D\/school-report&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1668541026978000&amp;usg=AOvVaw14C3lPKVVkx032tyl-gCe6\">Canadian Centre for Child Protection<\/a>. The numbers have also risen sharply in the United States,\u00a0\u00a0in both countries, these cases are increasingly being tried in civil courts.For Gregory\u2019s victims, that will mean undergoing intense, painful judgment and once more second-guessing agonizing memories. Many feel that they\u2019re being gaslighted again, but this time by the school board on behalf of their abuser. \u201cThey\u2019re still covering his ass,\u201d says Sonya, \u201cand theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>This article appears in print in the December 2022 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s <em>magazine. Buy the issue for <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/canadianmags.ca\/products\/macleans-december-2022\">$8.99<\/a> or better yet, subscribe to the monthly print magazine for just\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/secure.macleans.ca\/loc\/MME\/head_subscribe\">$39.99<\/a><\/em>.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1241598 size-full lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Cover_December_DRE-e1668026084782.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"660\" height=\"901\"\/>\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/longforms\/monster-classroom-calgary-abuse\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;A Monster in the Classroom&#8221; Pretty, popular and precocious, Kelly Schneider was an \u201cit\u201d girl at Calgary\u2019s John Ware School, a junior high school in the city\u2019s suburban southwest. As the only child of working parents, she was unusually independent for her age, eager for the adults in her life to see her as mature&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":516796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Feature_Michael_Gregory-766x431.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[77308,136285,71731],"class_list":["post-516795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-abuse","tag-sexual-predator","tag-teacher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}