Bill 33 amends Prince Edward Island’s Private Schools Act to add mandatory sexual‑misconduct prevention and response policies as a condition of registration, to expand and clarify criminal record and vulnerable sector check requirements for all private‑school employees, and to require private schools to provide student records to other educational institutions to facilitate enrollment or placement. It also gives the Department’s Administrator explicit investigatory powers when incidents or complaints of sexual misconduct are reported and creates a new regulation‑making head of power to define additional forms of sexual misconduct.
The changes shift several compliance obligations onto private‑school operators: drafting and maintaining a sexual‑misconduct policy, notifying the Administrator and the public‑school Registrar about incidents, ensuring background checks are current before unsupervised contact with students, and producing records promptly when students move between institutions. For school operators, HR staff, and compliance officers this means revising registration materials, tightening hiring and screening practices, updating privacy and record‑sharing processes, and budgeting for checks and administrative oversight.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires applicants for private‑school registration to file a sexual‑misconduct policy and obliges operators to keep it current, report incidents to the Administrator and the Registrar, and allow Administrator investigations. It also mandates vulnerable sector or criminal record checks before hire and every three years thereafter, conditions unsupervised access to students on those checks and a safety assessment, and compels prompt disclosure of student records to receiving institutions.
Who It Affects
Private‑school operators, owners and boards; all employees and instructors at private schools; the provincial Administrator named in the Act and the Registrar under the Education Act; parents and students transferring between institutions; HR, legal and compliance staff at affected schools.
Why It Matters
The bill establishes province‑level minimum safeguarding rules for private schools and centralizes investigatory authority with the Administrator, reducing variability in how schools respond to allegations. It also creates operational obligations—regularized background checks and record transfers—that will require procedural and budgetary changes in the private‑school sector.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill inserts a new, explicit definition of “sexual misconduct” into the Private Schools Act that lists a range of behaviours — from sexual assault and exploitation to stalking, voyeurism, indecent exposure and distribution of intimate images — and allows regulations to add other conduct. That definition is the trigger for multiple new duties: applicants for school registration must provide a written policy describing how the school will prevent and respond to sexual misconduct, and operators must maintain and update that policy over time.
Operators must also notify provincial authorities when an incident or complaint occurs and tell the Education Act Registrar if the allegation involves a licensed teacher or temporary permit holder. The Administrator gets independent authority to investigate any report the operator provides: inspectors can review records and interview witnesses even if the operator is already investigating or has taken its own action.
The bill requires operators to cooperate with those investigations and to make information available when requested.On hiring and supervision, the bill requires a vulnerable sector check — where available under federal rules — or otherwise a criminal record check performed no more than three months before an employee starts work; thereafter the bill mandates a criminal record check at least every three years while employed. The operator must ensure no employee has unsupervised access to students until those checks are complete and the operator has no reasonable grounds to suspect the employee poses a risk.
Employees must report if they are charged with a criminal offence.For student mobility the bill requires private schools to provide, on request, the records necessary to place a student or former student at another elementary, secondary or post‑secondary institution and to do so promptly. Finally, the Act’s registration checklist language is tightened to require applicants to furnish the information and documents called for by the Act and regulations and to pay any prescribed fees; the Act also receives an explicit regulation‑making hook to expand the list of conduct that counts as sexual misconduct.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Applicants for private‑school registration must submit a written sexual‑misconduct prevention and response policy with their application.
The Administrator may investigate any reported incident or complaint of sexual misconduct and can inspect records and interview witnesses regardless of any internal school investigation.
Employers must obtain a vulnerable sector check (if authorized federally) or a criminal record check no more than three months before an employee starts, and repeat a criminal record check at least once every three years.
No employee may have unsupervised access to students until the pre‑employment check is complete and the operator judges there are no reasonable grounds to believe the employee poses a danger.
On request, a private school must promptly provide another educational institution with the student records necessary to facilitate the student’s enrollment or placement.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Registration application: require Act/regulation items and prescribed fee
This amendment broadens what applicants must include with their registration: not only what the regulations specify, but any information or documents required by the Act itself, and any fee the regulations prescribe. Practically, this gives the department discretion to require the new sexual‑misconduct policy and other materials as part of a complete application and ties payment of a prescribed fee to the application process.
Defines sexual misconduct and forces policy submission and maintenance
The new section starts by defining “sexual misconduct” through a non‑exhaustive list (sexual assault, exploitation, harassment, stalking, voyeurism, indecent exposure, distribution of intimate images under PEI’s Intimate Images Protection Act, and other conduct set by regulation). It then requires applicants to file a prevention/response policy and obliges operators to keep that policy current — an administrative compliance item that will need templates, training content, and recordkeeping to show the policy is live and effective.
Operator reporting duties and Administrator investigatory authority
Operators must inform the Administrator of any incident or complaint and tell the Education Act Registrar when a licensed teacher or permit holder is implicated. The Administrator (or authorized delegate) can independently investigate; the statutory powers expressly include inspecting records and interviewing people with relevant information. That creates an external oversight mechanism that can proceed alongside or independently of internal processes or police investigations, and it imposes a duty on operators to make records and witnesses available.
Pre‑employment and periodic checks; conditions on unsupervised access; duty to report charges
This set of changes replaces the prior, narrower language with a clear regime: vulnerable sector checks (when permitted under the federal Criminal Records Act) or otherwise criminal record checks must be completed within three months before employment starts; subsequent criminal record checks must occur at least every three years. The operator must prevent unsupervised access until those checks are done and until the operator has no reasonable grounds to believe the employee is a danger. Employees must promptly tell the operator if charged with an offence, creating an internal reporting obligation that could trigger follow‑up checks or administrative action.
Student‑record disclosure to receiving institutions; expanded regulation‑making
Section 7.1 mandates that, upon request from a student or former student, the operator must promptly provide the records necessary to place that student at another elementary, secondary or post‑secondary institution. The bill also adds an explicit regulation‑making clause allowing government to specify additional conduct that constitutes sexual misconduct. Together these provisions address student mobility and give regulators flexibility to adjust the scope of prohibited conduct over time.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on this topic across all five countries.
Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Students and former students — receive necessary records to support timely enrollment or placement at other institutions, reducing transfer delays and administrative barriers.
- Survivors and complainants — schools must maintain policies and notify the Administrator, creating formalized pathways for reporting and external investigation which may improve accountability and support.
- Receiving educational institutions — gain timely access to records needed for placement decisions, improving placement accuracy and reducing administrative friction.
- Parents and guardians — obtain clearer institutional commitments on prevention and response through required school policies, improving transparency about how allegations are handled.
- Provincial Administrator and regulators — obtain statutory investigatory powers and clearer reporting lines, enabling more consistent oversight of private‑school responses to sexual‑misconduct allegations.
Who Bears the Cost
- Private‑school operators and boards — must draft, implement and maintain sexual‑misconduct policies, update registration packages, pay for or administer background checks, and allocate staff time for reporting and cooperation with investigations.
- Small and independent schools with limited budgets — face proportionally higher administrative and financial burdens from checks every three years, investigations, and potential legal or HR follow‑up.
- Employees and prospective hires — will undergo more systematic pre‑employment screening and periodic re‑screening, face restrictions on unsupervised access until checks clear, and have an obligation to report criminal charges.
- The Administrator’s office — may need additional resources to conduct investigations, inspect records and interview witnesses across multiple schools, which creates an unfunded operational demand unless the government allocates support.
- School privacy and compliance officers — must reconcile new disclosure duties with privacy law obligations and develop secure record‑transfer protocols to meet the statutory “prompt” requirement.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill pits stronger province‑level safeguarding and centralized oversight against the practical burdens and privacy/due‑process implications for operators and employees: it enhances protection and accountability for students but does so by expanding investigatory reach, increasing screening frequency, and mandating record disclosure, creating trade‑offs between safety, administrative capacity, individual rights, and the financial realities of small private schools.
The bill packs significant operational requirements into relatively short statutory text, leaving many implementation details to regulations and administrative policy. Key unanswered questions include the procedural relationship between Administrator investigations and police or labour investigations, standards of proof for removing unsupervised access, and what steps operators must take when an employee reports a charge.
The law’s reliance on a federal vulnerable sector check “if authorized” means some checks will vary depending on federal rules and RCMP practice — operators must track both provincial and federal constraints.
Privacy and record‑sharing tensions are acute. The requirement to provide student records “promptly” to facilitate placement will force schools to balance speed against obligations under provincial privacy law, parental consent requirements for minors, and secure transfer methods.
The investigatory power to inspect records and interview people can improve oversight but also risks duplicative or conflicting processes if the school, police, or labour arbitrator are also active; the bill does not set out how to coordinate or defer parallel proceedings. Finally, several critical terms — “reasonable grounds” to believe an employee may endanger students, what qualifies as records “necessary” for placement, and operational limits on the Administrator’s investigatory authority — are left undefined and will determine how intrusive or burdensome compliance becomes in practice.
There's more to this law than the bill.
Codify Laws traces every connection across the legislative lifecycle.