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Explosion in class leads to teacher reprimand

Chilliwack TOC held accountable for “misbehaved” students who lit gas on fire
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A teacher-on-call has been formally reprimanded for his lack of attention in a Chilliwack classroom that led to students creating a type of bottle bomb.

The incident took place last school year, on May 27, 2016, when Andrew Kevin Janzen was overseeing a Grade 11/12 welding and metalwork class at a Chilliwack high school. The high school involved was not listed in the report, prepared by the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, Bruce Preston. (See PDF below for full report.)

The consent resolution agreement states Janzen was using his personal cell phone for personal purposes several times throughout the class.

He also allowed students to work “in the exterior welding area of the classroom” without adequately supervising the students. Some of those unsupervised students then misbehaved while out of the teacher’s direct sight, the report states.

“They filled a welding rod canister with acetylene gas and then lit it, causing an explosion, and then filled it again and also added oxygen, causing a second, larger explosion,” it explains.

Janzen dealt with the explosion by leaving a note for the class’s regular teacher, but did not report the students directly to the school administration. He has since expressed remorse for the incident, and acknowledged the safety of his students was his responsibility.

He resigned from the Chilliwack School District in October 2016, and the matter was considered two months later by the commissioner, leading to the report that was released at the end of August. It sets out that Janzen must complete a course called Creating a Positive Learning Environment through the Justice Institute of BC, which he completed this summer.

The agreement is posted on www.bcteacherregulation.ca.

It does not state whether any students were hurt in, or reprimanded for, the incident.

JANZEN_CRA_20170830 by Jess Peters on Scribd


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Jessica Peters

About the Author: Jessica Peters

I began my career in 1999, covering communities across the Fraser Valley ever since.
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