Practice profile

• Partner with McLennan Ross’s Labour & Employment Practice Group
• Advises on a wide variety of labour, employment, human rights, occupational and health and safety, personnel, and privacy issues
• Focus is on education law:
  • school board governance,
  • school board / trustee legal issues,
  • school board meetings (procedure),
  • student issues (suspensions, expulsions, privacy, searches, evaluation, safety, harassment, etc.),
  • staff (labour, employment, privacy, evaluation, suspensions, terminations, etc.),
  • school board agreements,
  • intellectual property,
  • constitutional,
  • school board policy, including field trip / supervision / liability issues,
  • custody and access issues as they relate to schools,
  • school board collective bargaining issues and draft of school board collective agreements,
  • school closures,
  • school board criminal related matters, etc.
• Articled with the Québec Court of Appeal in Québec City
• Winner, best team and second best factum in the Laskin Constitutional / Administrative Law Moot Competition (1989)
• Worked as legal counsel to the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta in Edmonton
• Worked in the legal department at the Alberta School Boards’ Association, representing a majority of school boards in Alberta
• Established the legal department at Edmonton Catholic Schools and created monthly Law with Lunch seminars for school administrators

Representative Work

• Advises and represents school boards, central office personnel and administrators
• Advises and represents central office personnel, administrators and teachers charged with unprofessional conduct complaints

Courts and Tribunals

• Appears before administrative tribunals and all levels of the Alberta courts

Education

• Bachelor of Arts, University of Alberta (French)
• Teacher’s Diploma, L’Université du Québec á Chicoutimi
• Certificate in French Civilization and Culture, the Sorbonne, Paris, France

Professional Associations and Affiliations

• Founder, Canadian Bar Association Education Law Section (formed in 2004)
• Advisory Committee, Faculté St Jean, University of Alberta
• Director, Friars’ Board
• President, St. Thomas More Lawyers’ Guild (2004-05)
• Co-chair, 2004 Red Mass and Tribute Dinner to Chief Justice Allan H. Wachowich

Community and Volunteer Activities

• Board director, Canadian Association for the Practical Study of Law in Education (CAPSLE)
• Board member, Senate of Newman Theological College, St. Albert, Alberta

Publications and Presentations

• Associate Editor, monthly Edu-Law Reporter – Elementary and Secondary
• Teaches Business Law (in French) to business students at the Faculté St Jean, University of Alberta
• Papers include:
  • “Constructive Dismissal of Teachers and the Alberta Board of Reference” (2004)
  • “Teacher Sexual Torts: A School Board, Teacher and Association Perspective” (2003)
  • Regularly gives presentations to school boards, superintendents, central office school board personnel, and school administrators on current edu-law topics
  • Presents annually at CAPSLE – the 2004 presentation was presented in French
  • Taught for a major school board for two years at the junior high level and organized debating and public speaking competitions within the school and within the city
    

To contact Teresa, call 780.482.9247 or email thaykowsky@mross.com