Educational institutions face increasingly complex workplace, governance, and regulatory challenges. From labour relations and human rights issues to student and staff safety concerns, school boards and school districts, colleges, and universities require practical legal advice that balances legal obligations with their educational objectives.
Mathews Dinsdale provides strategic workplace law and labour relations advice and strategic governance advice to educational institutions across Canada. We work with school boards and school districts, colleges, universities, and independent schools to help them navigate complex workplace matters, manage risk, and maintain productive learning environments.
Led by John-Paul Alexandrowicz, our Practice Group is located from coast to coast and includes bilingual lawyers who are able to provide services in both English and French, including support for francophone and French-language educational institutions.
School Boards
For school boards, school districts and school divisions, , our advice spans the full range of labour, employment, human rights, and workplace safety matters. Our lawyers work closely with human resources professionals and chief executive officers, chief education officers, directors of education, superintendents, trustees and administrators in matters relating to collective bargaining, grievance arbitration, accommodation issues, policy development, workplace investigations, student and staff safety concerns, and strategic workforce management.
Our lawyers appreciate the distinct pressures facing school boards, including evolving legislative requirements, workforce management issues, student and employee accommodation obligations, workplace investigations, governance considerations, and workers’ compensation matters. We advise educational institutions on workplace injury claims, return-to-work programs, accommodation obligations, occupational health and safety obligations, ministry investigations, critical injury reporting requirements, workplace violence concerns, and related regulatory matters.
Our Occupational Health and Safety team assists educational institutions in responding to incidents involving student and employee safety, including increasingly complex matters involving workplace violence, self-harm risks, and other high-risk situations.
Colleges and Universities
Our lawyers have a long history of providing advice and representation to colleges and universities across Canada. We work closely with university and college presidents, boards of governors, provosts, vice-presidents academic, deans, and labour and human resources representatives on faculty and staff relations matters, including collective bargaining, faculty association negotiations, labour relations strategy, grievance arbitration, tenure and promotion disputes, faculty discipline, human rights and accommodation issues, institutional governance matters, policy development, and administrative decision-making.
Attuned to the legal and operational realities of post-secondary institutions, we assist senior academic administrators and institutional leaders with complex workplace and governance issues.
Our work for post-secondary institutions also extends to a broad range of student-related matters, including student conduct and academic misconduct proceedings, student sexual violence proceedings and investigations, human rights and accommodation matters, and grade appeals, discipline appeals, and matters involving professional misconduct, capability issues, and certification. Grounded in administrative law, our lawyers regularly represent educational institutions before tribunals, administrative bodies, and other adjudicative forums. We offer proactive guidance designed to prevent disputes wherever possible, while delivering effective advocacy when matters require litigation or adjudication.
Practice Specialties
We regularly assist educational institutions with:
- Labour Relations and Collective Bargaining
- Employment and Workforce Management
- Human Rights, Accommodation and Accessibility
- Workplace Investigations
- Student and Staff Safety Matters
- Occupational Health and Safety
- Ministry/Department of Labour Investigations and Regulatory Compliance
- Workers’ Compensation and Return-to-Work Matters
- Governance and Policy Development
- Privacy and Freedom of Information Issues
- Workplace Harassment and Violence Prevention
- Administrative Law, Tribunal Proceedings and Appeals
- Student Conduct and Academic Misconduct Proceedings
- Student Sexual Violence Proceedings and Investigations
- Grade and Discipline Appeals
- Professional Misconduct, Capability and Certification Matters
- Compensation Restraint Compliance
- Litigation and Dispute Resolution
- Crisis Management and Risk Mitigation
Professional Development
Our lawyers regularly present at conferences on legal developments of interest to educational institutions, including at the Canadian Network of Human Resources Professionals, of which John-Paul is a co-founder and director, as well as at the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association’s Labour Relations and Human Resources Symposium, and for CAUBO Faculty Bargaining Services, CAPSLE, the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, the Ontario Association of School Business Officials, and the Education Law section of the Canadian Bar Association. We also provide in-house training to administrators and human resources professionals.
