A long-time teacher at Surrey Christian School in British Columbia, Canada, says she was told her contract would not be renewed after school administrators discovered she was living with her male partner, violating a clause in her employment contract that forbids “any sexual activity outside of a heterosexual marriage.”
“When you’re enforcing a policy like this you have to ask a teacher questions like, ‘Who do you live with? Where do you live? Are you sexually active? Are you pregnant? Are you gay?… It was humiliating,” Stephanie Vande Kraats told Go Public, tearing up as she recalled the meetings two years ago that led to her resignation.
Vande Kraats had worked at the school for almost 14 years as an English teacher and librarian.
She’s angry that her former employer receives half of its annual funding — $5 million — from the B.C. government when the school discriminates against employees.
Surrey Christian School is among hundreds of religious schools across the country that receive public funding. Many are allowed to have discriminatory hiring policies because they have religious exemptions from human rights laws.
Vande Kraats says she was married when she signed the Surrey Christian School’s employment contract, which included a community standards policy, banning employees from having sex outside of a heterosexual marriage.
More than a decade later, after she had divorced and was living with her common-law partner, school superintendent Dave Loewen called her to his office and asked questions about her personal life.
He told her she could work six more months until the end of her contract, but Vande Kraats says she felt she had to resign.
“I didn’t want to continue in a place where I already felt humiliated and judged,” she said. “It was traumatic for me.”
She says she also felt pressured to exit quietly, because she needed a good letter of reference. She is now working at another school in the Vancouver area.
“I think there are a lot more people who have been hurt by these policies than just myself, and I know exactly why they’re not speaking up. They need those references as much as I did,” Vande Kraats says.