Nicholas Mills was a teacher at C.W. Jeffreys Collegiate Institute in Toronto. Mr. Mills was responsible for coordinating a week-long school trip from the institute to Algonquin Provincial Park, some 200 km north of Toronto, in 2017. During the group’s stay in the the park one of the students, 15-year-old Jeremiah Perry, drowned.
Under the rules of the Toronto District School Board, mandatory swim tests were required prior to the departure of the group. An initial swimming test for the students took place but 15 of the 32 students who went on the trip did not pass the test. Mr. Perry was one of those who had not passed this test. Sadly, Mr. Perry drowned on the trip.
Subsequent to the accident, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) conducted a thorough investigation, including over 100 interviews, according to Constable Catherine Yarmel, a spokesperson for the OPP. As a result of their investigation, they have charged Mr. Mills, the 54-year-old teacher, with criminal negligence causing death. Mr. Mills was responsible for designing the trip itinerary as well as the overall supervision of the outing. He was the designated team leader for Mr. Perry’s group.
Following the charge against Mr. Mills, Toronto School Board spokesperson Ryan Bird, said, “Our safety requirements last summer we believe were sufficient and had they been followed, a number of people that did go on this trip, would not have gone because obviously as we made clear last summer, a number of them did not pass the swim test which should have made them ineligible to go on the trip in the first place.”
Mr. Perry’s death is tragic, and we offer our condolences to his family and loved ones. Nothing can bring him back, but we can work even harder to prevent future tragedies. We cannot assess or determine motivations or steps by the teacher, the Toronto School Board, or the police from a few news articles and online coverage. But what the EBI Group team is conscious of is that every day during the average school year, hundreds if not thousands of school groups go out on adventure trips. These trips are seen as important experiential learning modules that support classroom-based learning. Most frequently, these trips are organised by a given teacher for a specific class. Whilst most School Boards have standard safety protocols (as exemplified in the above case), how frequently a given teacher ignores, or is unaware of, or is not properly prepared with these protocols becomes an issue. This issue becomes even more serious if the principal of the school signs off on the trip without actually knowing how carefully the teacher has followed the protocols.
The situation here involves a school group, but such incidents can occur with travel agencies, tour operators, scout or sports group and others around the world. The EBI Risk Assessment tool is designed to give principals and other group overseers greater confidence that all risk factors relating to the planned trip are reviewed and assessed prior to the departure of the group. EBI offers the service either as either a self-serve model or we can do it for an organisation for a modest fee. No risk assessment system is absolutely 100% fail-safe but what the tragic case in Toronto illustrates is that a risk assessment system independent of school or government protocols can provide a stronger measure of flagging risks that could and should be avoided. This is what the EBI Group system does.
