British Columbia - The province's teachers say they have won a significant freedom-of-expression victory in a dispute with their employers over what information they may send home with students.

An arbitrator ruled this month that Southeast Kootenay school district violated teachers' rights when it refused to allow them to give a union pamphlet to students for delivery to their parents. The pamphlet criticized standardized tests known as the Foundation Skills Assessment and urged parents to request that their children be excused from writing them.

Arbitrator John Kinzie says students were not inappropriately involved in the discourse because the pamphlet was in a sealed envelope. Halting the distribution of the pamphlet violated the teachers' freedom-of-expression rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he ruled.

While acknowledging the employer had a legitimate concern about some misleading information in the pamphlet, Kinzie said the district should have discussed that with teachers rather than banning the communication.

It's the second such victory for teachers and their union. In 2005, the British Columbia Court of Appeal upheld another arbitrator's ruling that teachers have a right to raise concerns about political decisions during parent-teacher interviews and post union information on school bulletin boards.

Susan Lambert, vice-president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation, said teachers have an obligation to discuss their concerns about the education system with parents and she hopes the latest ruling will stop the "concerted effort" by some employers to interfere with such communications.

"I hope this will make people think twice . . . before they try to curb teachers' freedom of speech," she said in an interview. "Teachers will always talk to parents [and] they have a responsibility to do so."

Education Minister Shirley Bond said she's studying the decision.

"We've always been clear that it's important for teachers to communicate with parents, but we believe the focus of that discussion should be on student achievement," she said in an interview. "We don't believe that political messages should be transmitted through students."

The latest dispute began two years ago when Southeast Kootenay district told teachers they had no right to send union materials home with students. Rod Allen, then superintendent, said sending materials home with students would give parents the impression that the information was sanctioned by the school.

The teachers filed a grievance, as did colleagues in other school districts.

The B.C. Public School Employers' Association followed up with a memo advising districts that teachers did not have the right to use students as conduits or couriers of materials not approved by the school. It warned that such unauthorized communications could damage public confidence in the education system.

But Kinzie noted that teachers regularly communicate with parents by sending messages home with students and said the FSA pamphlet was no different. Such communications "further the values of democratic discourse and truth finding, which underlie the freedom of expression," he wrote in a 53-page decision.

He agreed with the employer that the pamphlet was confusing, in that it told parents they had the right to withdraw their students from the tests. But he said the school district should have raised that concern directly with the teachers rather than instituting an absolute ban.

The employers' association says Kinzie's ruling does not mean teachers have the right to send any information home through students. "The award places a restriction on the subject matter of the material that can be sent, requires it to be accurate, and retains a process for employer control of what information is sent home," it says.

Bond said she intends to find out what school boards can do to stop inaccurate information.