Western Standard - Alberta parents launch ‘REPORT A TEACHER’ site over classroom ideology (with @BertaProudDad)

00:00:00.000 I got to remind you is because you've subscribed to get on their westernstandard.news slash

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00:00:41.260 us covering those stories as i said that the others just don't have the courage to ah speaking

00:00:46.420 of courage and pissing people off and stirring things up i see he's in the lobby we'll bring him

00:00:51.040 in right away berta proud dad also known as lawrence mcgee i guess you could introduce it the other way

00:00:57.240 round has uh brought about a very interesting initiative uh hey there thanks for joining us

00:01:02.720 today thanks cory thanks for having me buddy yeah i know you're out and about on the road so i

00:01:08.420 appreciate you taking some of that time i guess you know the the school season and the summer is

00:01:12.620 coming to an end so uh you've uh things are only going to get more lively i guess where to begin

00:01:19.140 you started the report a teacher website uh give us a rundown what is it yeah so report a teacher

00:01:26.620 is basically to hold teachers accountable. So how this all came about was there was a teacher

00:01:32.040 called Peter McKay going all over social media with Bill 25 coming out, which was supposed to

00:01:37.340 be September 20 or September 1st, which Danielle Smith is now delayed. And she's talking about

00:01:41.700 January, which I'm quite disappointed about. And many other parents are, but he was going around

00:01:45.720 telling people how to circumvent the rules, basically other teachers, how they can get

00:01:49.440 around it. And that was put onto my attention. And during the teacher strike, I was an advocate.

00:01:53.920 And I always said that, you know, it would be it'd be students first and the teachers, they come second to me and many other parents in the province.

00:02:01.880 And that kind of pissed me off when I saw that. So I said, well, there's got to be something we can do.

00:02:06.040 And now we do know that the provincial government does have a report system put in place right now, but it's just not working well enough.

00:02:13.180 There's no way to know how many reports are put in, how many reports have been actionable and what has actually been resolved, if they've resolved any.

00:02:19.720 So what I kind of did is I got together with a teacher and a couple other wonderful people who care, and we came up with Report a Teacher.

00:02:27.560 And there's a lot of misinformation out there saying that we're going to use this to dox teachers and who are we to be able to do this and all that other stuff, but we're not going to be making any of that information public.

00:02:37.560 What this is is a tool for parents to go to somewhere and say, hey, you know what?

00:02:41.540 these teachers aren't doing their jobs effectively, they're not following Bill 25,

00:02:45.240 and we want you to tell the education minister, the minister of education, and basically get this

00:02:50.520 dealt with, because they don't have confidence in the government. No, well, the laws don't have

00:02:55.580 confidence in the teachers. I mean, hey, I'm certain the vast majority of teachers, I mean,

00:03:00.820 it's a tough job to get into. They did it because they want to educate children. They're of the best

00:03:05.000 of intentions. They're not going to harm them. But there is a vocal minority who are pretty

00:03:09.140 ideologically driven who feel they have to bring their ideology into the classroom. We've seen

00:03:14.460 examples of that. We've seen kids showing it with their smartphones. We've heard it reported.

00:03:19.000 The unions are going to cover that up. I mean, we've got to allow parents and students,

00:03:23.100 at least some sort of outlet to report on this when this happens.

00:03:26.760 Absolutely. Parents should be comfortable knowing that when the child goes to school,

00:03:29.740 that they don't have to worry about ideologies before academics, right? And we're kind of seeing

00:03:36.520 that shift now. And if you notice, if you're a teacher, if you're a student out there, you should

00:03:42.080 you should be deserving of that kind of education when you go to school and it should set you up

00:03:47.360 for success. These are the leaders of tomorrow. That's what they are. And what I'm seeing

00:03:50.660 is universities, especially, you know, they take these kids out of school who have already been

00:03:55.460 accustomed to this ideology and they kind of double down on it through the students unions

00:03:59.080 and other programs. And we're not just talking about the pride flag here. Everybody likes to say

00:04:02.880 that, you know, this is about hating pride flags.

00:04:05.360 I've seen, I've seen free Palestine t-shirts.

00:04:08.260 I've seen flags.

00:04:09.200 I've seen stickers.

00:04:10.280 Uh, I've seen, uh, little posters about people going after the premier in classrooms.

00:04:15.620 It has no place in our classroom.

00:04:17.620 So they want to hang the Canadian flag and the Alberta flag only.

00:04:20.720 And I agree with them.

00:04:21.920 Well, I think most, most parents agree.

00:04:23.860 They just want an unbiased education going towards their children.

00:04:27.560 Flags are just symbols.

00:04:28.460 And those ones don't even, in my view, bother me as much though it is indicative.

00:04:31.520 and I understand why it has to be controlled unfortunately because the common sense is left

00:04:35.940 but a lot of this is what they're seeing and kids with smartphones have let out some very

00:04:40.840 interesting recordings one teacher was going on at the classroom about the evils of the federal

00:04:45.600 conservative party uh very uh in a very rough way there was another one where a child was shamed

00:04:51.380 and called out and he was a Muslim individual because he didn't want to participate in some

00:04:56.560 sort of scheduled pride event if we don't expose these how do we stop these teachers from pushing

00:05:01.680 the kids around well that's exactly it and that's what report teachers is all about like i said

00:05:06.480 before earlier you know there is a program out there but parents don't feel that that program

00:05:10.700 and that system is working effectively or efficiently and they want parents to take it

00:05:15.240 into their own hands and that's exactly what we've done and this this isn't just about lgbtq plus like

00:05:20.140 i said this is about all all ideologies in the classroom it should be academics first and leave

00:05:25.660 that for home. You know what I mean? If you want to inundate your child with your ideology at home

00:05:30.840 as a parent, that's your right to do so. You know, for instance, let's talk about clothing for a

00:05:34.760 second. Everybody know that I have a clothing company and one major slogan that I go with is

00:05:38.700 unapologetically conservative. I sell flags, I sell hats, I sell t-shirts. None of that should

00:05:44.240 be in the classroom. That goes against Bill 25. And if there's a teacher out there wearing that

00:05:49.580 and a parent decides to report it to the website, it's going to go up to the chain to the Minister

00:05:53.860 of education, because even though I sell that clothing, it's still inappropriate for the

00:05:58.480 classroom. So what about controls though? I mean, that is something, you know, it's a legitimate

00:06:03.320 question. It's a fair one. This is a person just starting something together. What if it's a student

00:06:07.900 with an unfair grudge who doesn't like a teacher? I mean, I was a little dick when I was in school.

00:06:11.740 I could have pulled nasty things on teachers or even a parent with a problem. How do we make sure

00:06:16.340 a teacher doesn't unfairly get labeled or smeared in something like this? Yeah, absolutely. So that's

00:06:22.180 a very good question and it's it's basically a foolproof system uh to counteract the misinformation

00:06:27.740 many people have that same question bill 25 is going to be listed on the website and what we're

00:06:33.180 kind of picturing right now we're trying to get the programmers to do is a drag and drop system

00:06:37.060 so basically you're going to have to upload a picture as a parent a verified parent and you're

00:06:42.060 going to have to verify your identity um and you're going to drag and drop the rule out of

00:06:46.660 bill 25 that corresponds to the picture so you're not actually just writing in there mrs smith has

00:06:53.960 a palestinian flag t-shirt you created some ai image of it because we have ai detection as well

00:06:59.540 and then you can put that in there you actually have to drag and drop you have to do your work

00:07:03.040 it's going to take you 15 minutes to submit a report here this isn't going to be something

00:07:06.740 that they can come and just mass report and mass because they have a grudge against a teacher

00:07:10.420 and then uh we're going to have a committee of people i'm not on the committee of people

00:07:15.560 just letting everybody know they all like to ask what my qualifications are. Some of these are

00:07:20.140 teachers and academics and they are basically going to be working for the website and they're

00:07:25.940 going to be the ones that go through the reports and then we are going to hand them in and track

00:07:29.380 them to the Minister of Education. So you will have to drag and drop the rule that is being broken

00:07:33.320 corresponded to a picture to prove that this is an actual report. So unsurprisingly the teachers

00:07:40.980 unions, and a number of politicians have gone quite haywire over your initiative so far.

00:07:48.340 What sort of backlash have you been dealing with? I know they've been trying to get your site pulled

00:07:51.540 down, but they failed so far. Yeah. So the site isn't illegal. We have lawyers that I went out

00:07:57.720 and I hired to tell me if I could even do this in the first place. What I'm doing is absolutely

00:08:03.720 legal uh death threats we've received death threats both myself and my wife because of this

00:08:09.700 um they've doxed my 16 year old daughter again this is the second time she's ever gone through

00:08:14.200 a doxing attempt the first one was during the teacher strike uh when i was speaking out against

00:08:18.340 teachers then so teachers it's just it's absolutely amazing and wild to me right you know they're

00:08:22.560 they're in charge of our kids in the classroom but when they get a little pushback or they might

00:08:26.460 be held accountable to something by parents but doesn't seem that they like too much they start

00:08:30.380 going after our kids. It just doesn't make sense to me. But the thing is, it's all the more reason

00:08:35.980 right now to make sure that this website goes ahead is because the behavior that they've shown

00:08:40.760 us in the past couple of weeks since we decided to launch this. Yeah. And I mean, a little

00:08:45.840 background I should give to some of the viewers and listeners here. Alberta's system, the way we

00:08:50.000 have it. I mean, in a case like this, often perhaps you would have a professional association,

00:08:54.680 a person could put a complaint towards or feel that things are being done inappropriately.

00:08:58.380 in Canada, they've made this hybrid. The union is the professional association. It's one in the same

00:09:04.840 and the union makes no bones about it. It's the interest of the teacher that it protects

00:09:09.280 rather than that of the student, which leaves this gap for parents or students where you don't even

00:09:15.920 know where you can take a complaint if you feel something's been inappropriately going on in a

00:09:20.460 classroom. Yeah, that's exactly it. It's not only that you don't know where to bring a complaint,

00:09:25.700 It's what happens after the complaint has been put in.

00:09:28.580 You know, we're seeing the Alberta Teachers Association protect their own

00:09:32.040 and they have no protections in for parents.

00:09:34.340 We've seen parents have to pull their kids out of school, go to private school.

00:09:37.540 We've seen them have to homeschool.

00:09:39.280 And that shouldn't just be the case, right?

00:09:40.920 We all know what kind of economy we live in,

00:09:42.820 where it needs to be two parents at work to even raise a family now.

00:09:46.240 And now parents are wondering where they're going to send their kids.

00:09:48.500 But I have seen one thing online since starting all of this.

00:09:51.260 Homeschool has become popular, very, very popular.

00:09:54.220 and the ata is fighting against that as well they did through the last teacher strike and they're

00:09:58.360 trying to do it through the ndp um but parents just do not feel confident you know that yes

00:10:02.960 there's we all like to look at the hate comments or people who are disagreeing with this and i know

00:10:06.940 on my own page i've been showing a lot of that but don't don't let that fool you there's a lot

00:10:11.500 more support for this website than there are people who hate it well absolutely and i mean

00:10:16.480 some of it hopefully is just a preventative measure you know as long as they know people

00:10:21.640 are watching and there can be a report, a teacher who is ideologically fixated might just realize

00:10:27.120 it's better for him or her to just bite their tongue, keep it to yourself, rant about it at

00:10:31.640 home or do it on your own time and not take it out in the classroom. This goes both ways. I don't

00:10:36.900 think a teacher should promote Alberta independence within the classroom either, even if I very much

00:10:41.120 like the attitude. That's just not appropriate for that space. No, it really isn't appropriate

00:10:47.980 and and that's what i'm saying i and i want to be clear about this i hope i get zero reports on this

00:10:53.640 website because if i get zero reports on this website i know teachers are doing their job

00:10:58.280 but unfortunately you know if i was a betting man i bet you we're going to get a lot of reports here

00:11:03.600 because what i'm seeing i just got a picture sent to me by a parent who has a kid in red deer and

00:11:10.340 they're already circumventing the rules even though we're not at bill 25 yet we're waiting

00:11:14.080 until January. There's no pride flags in this school in Red Deer. I'll be doing content on

00:11:19.160 this. What they've done now is taken lightning bolts with rainbows and then Palestinian colors,

00:11:24.760 and they plastered them around the school. So it's absolutely insane that teachers out there

00:11:31.520 are trying to circumvent these rules when they should actually be worrying about being a better

00:11:35.660 teacher and how they're going to set up the leaders of tomorrow. Well, there's no shortage

00:11:40.660 of things that teachers, if they want to take up activism outside of the classroom, that they can

00:11:45.400 promote. I mean, perhaps things aren't being well enough funded. Maybe there's not a good balance

00:11:49.360 in curriculum that can be rationally discussed and worked on and improved upon. But when they're

00:11:54.600 just so fixated on putting up symbols or sometimes defending some matter that's getting in front of

00:12:00.220 children that really isn't appropriate, then you question things. And getting kind of broader,

00:12:05.500 how though do we battle this ideology i think it was a nova scotia minister or somebody out east

00:12:12.080 recently went on a tirade saying that parents do not have the right to you know raise their

00:12:19.560 children they were saying it is the role they felt it is their role to get between children

00:12:23.240 and their parents and to take over the education like it's a an arrogance and a dangerous uh

00:12:29.980 intervention within the rights of parents and families in general, and it's growing. How do

00:12:35.340 we stop, or at least counter the growth of that ideology in general? Well, parents, and I know a

00:12:42.620 lot of parents are not lazy, and they're not lazy when it comes down to their children's education,

00:12:46.760 but parents have to be more involved. You know, what I do with my daughter every day, she comes

00:12:50.520 home from school, and maybe I might not see her right away, maybe it'll be in the evening, is I

00:12:53.980 ask her what she learned that day. I asked her if anything made her feel uncomfortable, and then I

00:12:58.200 I ask her point blank about ideology, ideology in the classroom. I ask her point blank about this

00:13:03.840 and she understands, right? And we've been doing this since elementary school with her. So she

00:13:07.800 knows all about it, but you know, the days that she feels uncomfortable, which is few and far

00:13:12.220 between now, cause she is in a really good school. Um, we do have a conversation about it. And then

00:13:16.860 I've had to get involved on three occasions with the principal and with teachers and we've fixed

00:13:21.000 it. Um, the power of social media is amazing when you can go out there and you can, you know,

00:13:26.020 basically if you have evidence and show what a teacher has done um you know you you can usually

00:13:31.820 get some change done but we're not i want to be clear about this website this website is not going

00:13:36.500 to do that i'm not going to be taking mrs smith because she has a report on her and making content

00:13:40.900 about this but what i can do is i can go to the minister of education and ask them why there's not

00:13:45.280 you know we have 50 reports in and there's no actionable items happening and that's something

00:13:50.100 and i can report on that so that's that's basically why this website now exists but

00:13:54.680 in all reality, parents have to start getting involved and they have to not be scared to

00:13:59.020 attend school board meetings. They can't be scared to hold these teachers accountable because

00:14:03.440 they don't own our kids and their responsibility is not to own our kids. It's to set them up for

00:14:08.740 the future. We will handle the ideology and our value and belief system under our own roofs

00:14:13.220 because we're entitled to do that as parents. No, that's a very good point. I mean,

00:14:17.400 personal responsibility still comes into this as, you know, if the parents aren't going to

00:14:22.440 participate in the school system, then don't be so shocked if things go in a different direction

00:14:27.720 than what you would have liked to have seen. We do have school board elections and we have

00:14:31.040 terrible turnouts for it. We do have, you know, parent-teacher events, things like that, where

00:14:36.500 you can communicate with teachers, talk to the school members and possibly head off some of

00:14:41.680 these issues before they become an issue. Nobody else is going to be able to do it unless we stand

00:14:45.600 up and do it ourselves. They're your children. They're not the teacher's children. I can't be

00:14:51.760 more clear about that they're your children and you have a role and responsibility when it comes

00:14:56.820 to their education just like teachers do you have more of a role and responsibility because the

00:15:01.460 teachers will do what they're going to do follow the academics and if they are indoctrinating your

00:15:06.620 child with some sort of ideology you're never going to know unless you ask because these kids

00:15:10.820 are seeing this every single day and they think it's normal get into the rooms go to the parent

00:15:15.560 teacher interviews ask for a tour of the school get involved and since we just decided to launch

00:15:20.720 this website, so many parents have reached out to me and said that they're going to do that.

00:15:25.040 Exactly that. They're going to go and meet with their teachers. They're going to meet with the

00:15:28.120 principal and they're going to tour schools. They want to know exactly what's going on in their

00:15:31.780 school because, well, obviously what the teachers did by the backlash towards me and my colleagues

00:15:38.160 in this has woken a lot of parents up to what the hell is going on in education in Alberta.

00:15:43.940 Well, I appreciate you bringing attention to the issue and it's just the right time at the start

00:15:47.840 of the school season. I mean, there's a lot of things going on, but we still got to pay attention

00:15:51.140 to our local issues while they're going ahead. So before I let you go, where can people find

00:15:56.300 more information on what you're doing in general and on this initiative specifically?

00:16:00.800 Just go to the website right now. It's not launched. We can't take any reports until

00:16:05.080 Bill 25 actually comes into play here. But you can go to reportateacher.ca and it's going to tell you

00:16:10.220 exactly how we're laying it all out. Don't allow some comment section or some Facebook warrior

00:16:15.360 to tell you how this is going to work.

00:16:17.740 We're laying it out right there.

00:16:19.120 You could read it.

00:16:19.740 It's a little bit of a read,

00:16:20.520 but if you're a concerned parent or a teacher

00:16:22.300 and you don't like what we're doing,

00:16:24.120 right there should answer all your questions

00:16:25.720 of what we're going to be doing.

00:16:27.380 Right on.

00:16:27.980 Well, I'll let you get back

00:16:29.100 to what you're doing out east over there.

00:16:30.880 I thank you for taking some time to talk to us today

00:16:33.680 and for the work you've been doing.

00:16:35.980 We'll see how things go into the school year.

00:16:38.060 As you said, hopefully there's no complaints

00:16:39.460 because you've just scared off the ideologues

00:16:41.800 and they'll just stick to the curriculum.

00:16:43.980 I hope so as well.

00:16:44.660 thanks cory appreciate it great thank you so one more time guys yeah reportateacher.ca that was

00:16:50.680 lawrence mcgee or most easily found as berta proud dad on many many social media channels

Western Standard - August 31, 2026

Alberta parents launch ‘REPORT A TEACHER’ site over classroom ideology (with @BertaProudDad)

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