WI art teacher sells his students’ work for own profit
By Chelsey St-Pierre
An art teacher at a public junior high school in Saint-Lazare placed his students’ artwork on his website as well as a U.S.-based public website for sale.The grade 8 art teacher, Mario Perron used the names of the students who produced the drawings in the titles which were displayed above their respective pieces of art on the site, all which could be found under a section entitled “student art” under his seller profile.
Perron has just over 1,700 works of art for sale on the U.S.-based site. He placed 96 student creations for sale with prices ranging from $94.00 — $190.00. “For this guy to feel like he has carte-blanche is extremely alarming,” said a parent named Dave (pseudonym used for this purpose of this article) who contacted The Suburban, on condition of anonymity in order to protect the identity of his minor child.”My teen came home from school telling me that his art teacher is selling students’ artwork online. This is invasive to the privacy of the students that he is teaching.”
The Suburban contacted the school’s administration as well as the school board that refused to comment except for the following, “The Lester B. Pearson school board (LBPSB) is aware of the situation and is taking these allegations very seriously. An investigation is underway so the school board cannot comment on this matter any further at this point,” LBPSB spokesperson Darren Becker told The Suburban.
Westwood Junior High School principal Anna Haller did not respond to The Suburban’s request for comment, however when a parent reached out, she responded with concern for the confidentiality pertaining to staff. “Thank you for your e-mail. This matter is currently under investigation. All matters pertaining to LBPSB employees remain confidential.”
“Mr. Perron did not take into consideration the children’s confidentiality when he posted and then attempted to sell their drawings online without the consent of the children. the parents or the school board. This is extremely troubling and concerning,” Dave explained.
The Suburban ran an online search test and it took less than 10 minutes to connect the dots between where Perron works and view the names of his students starting from the artwork sales site. On his Facebook profile, Perron is listed as a teacher for the Lester B. Pearson school board and links to the sale of his students’ artwork was also connected to his public profile. In his Bio link, it says he teaches at a West Island school. With a quick search of “West Island school’s staff lists and Mario Perron”, it was easy to locate Perron as a current staff member at Westwood Junior high school. n
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