Twenty teachers in Surrey, B.C., were told not to show up to work Wednesday after their teaching licences were suspended.

Amrit Sanghe, president of the Surrey Teachers’ Association, told CBC News the teachers missed critical emails about updating their criminal record checks because the notice went to their spam folders.

Sanghe said this is a “significant” amount of teachers pulled from the school system. 

“It’s definitely the size of a small to medium elementary school worth of teachers.” 

Sanghe said the issue stems from the province’s Criminal Record Review Act that requires teachers to undergo a criminal record check every five years. 

An email from the Ministry of Education and Child Care shared with CBC News says the department can submit a criminal check on a teacher’s behalf. 

But Sanghe said often teachers are required to submit more information, such as finger prints, as part of these checks, and these notices are the ones that ended up in many teachers’ spam folders.

“The frustrating part is that it seemed like the ministry knew that this communication was going to be routed into spam folders,” said Sanghe. 

Sanghe said there was a conversation between the ministry and the B.C. Teachers’ Federation about the issue. 

Once a request for additional information is sent to a teacher through B.C.’s Criminal Records Review Program, the teacher has 90 days to submit that information, or else their teaching licence is suspended, according to the ministry’s website. 

“They [the ministry] could have sent additional communication via the mail, or they could’ve been coordinating with local school districts to ensure that this did not happen,” said Sanghe. 

A statement from the Ministry of Education and Child Care said there are currently 160 teaching certificates suspended across B.C. for failure to provide proper information for criminal record checks. 

“Before suspending a certificate, the [Teacher Regulation Branch] makes multiple attempts to contact affected teachers with the contact information they have provided,” said the statement. 

“The Criminal Records Review Program also contacts the certificate holder directly by email or mail when they require more information.” 

The ministry said it is aware that there is potential for emails to end up in spam folders but it “does not control email service algorithms.”

Sanghe said as of Thursday, 15 of the 20 teachers are back in classrooms and she is still waiting to hear about the remaining five. 

The teachers were not paid for the day of school they missed, said Sanghe. 

“They should have been putting some plans in place to ensure that teachers remained where they belong, which is in front of their students,” said Sanghe.