TORONTO - The Toronto District School Board says a teen who drowned while on a school-run camping trip this summer had not passed a mandatory swim test.
John Malloy, the board's director of education, says Jeremiah Perry and 14 other students on the multi-day July canoe trip to Algonquin Park did not pass the test.
Malloy says 15 other students on the trip passed the test and there was no documentation available for two others on the trip.
Fifteen-year-old Perry was swimming with other students when he disappeared underwater and did not resurface. His body was recovered a day later.
TDSB procedures indicate that students must take a second test if they fail the first one, but Malloy says a second test was never provided or offered.
He says the two teachers who were on the trip have been placed on home assignment as a result of the incident.
Malloy says he is deeply troubled that the school's guidelines weren't followed.
He says he's had the school board tighten regulations by requiring principals to see a list of students that passed and failed a required swimming test before a trip.