PSB parts ways with senior employee after new information emerges in Craswell case
Employee knew about earlier incident while investigating 2024 complaint, director says
The Public Schools Branch says a senior employee is no longer with the organization, after it emerged that the person knew about a 2023 complaint involving substitute teacher Matthew Craswell while involved in the investigation of a 2024 incident at a different P.E.I. school.
Craswell pleaded guilty last month to one count of sexual interference over the way in which he touched a young female student at Stratford's Glen Stewart Primary School during a classroom game in April 2024.
The Public Schools Branch had previously said nobody dealing with the 2024 complaint knew there had been a similar allegation at West Kent Elementary School in Charlottetown in June 2023.
If the branch had known of the earlier incident, PSB director Tracy Beaulieu has maintained, Craswell's actions would have been reported to "the appropriate authorities."
But on Friday, Beaulieu sent out a letter to parents with new information.
"This week, new information was uncovered that a senior employee at the PSB who participated in the investigation of the April 2024 complaint was aware of the June 2023 incident," the letter said, in part. "This does not align with what had been previously shared with the PSB leadership. This omission has impacted how we have communicated about this issue over the past two weeks.
"As a result of this new information, this individual is no longer employed at the PSB."
The letter didn't specify whether that person had been fired or submitted a resignation.
"Many of you have reached out over the past two weeks, some with questions and others offering words of support," Beaulieu's letter said. "Although this has been a difficult time for many of us, we are committed to strengthening the Public Schools Branch."
CBC News reached out to the Public Schools Branch for more information about what happened.
"There is little more information we can offer you beyond this message due to privacy and confidentiality constraints, and will not be taking interviews on this matter," a spokesman replied by email late Friday afternoon.
Many questions were raised during the just-ended spring sitting of the P.E.I. Legislative Assembly after CBC News reported on Craswell's guilty plea on the sexual interference charge, as well as on three unrelated child pornography charges.
Some questions from the opposition parties involved the fact that neither police nor Child Protection Services officials were notified about the complaints that Craswell had allegedly touched children inappropriately.
Then there was the fact that he was allowed to keep teaching at the high school level following the Stratford elementary school investigation by PSB officials.
The facts revealed in court as Craswell pleaded guilty led Premier Rob Lantz to rise in the legislature to apologize to Island parents.
Among other things, court documents said Craswell bragged about his sexually abusive behaviour online and counselled like-minded people on how to do the same. He also wrote about sexually touching three other girls while teaching them.
P.E.I.'s former chief justice, David Jenkins, has been named to head a third-party review of the Public Schools Branch and its practices in the wake of all the allegations.
"We await The Honourable David H. Jenkins' review and hope it will help us all advance our efforts to ensure strong and well-resourced collective policies, processes, and structures," the PSB's spokesperson said in his Friday afternoon email.
With files from Nicola MacLeod