Hanover School Division reacts to news article on accused SRSS teacher
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The Hanover School Division has issued a statement regarding a Winnipeg Free Press article about a former uncertified teacher as being “uninformed and/or patently false.”
In the statement issued on Tuesday, the school division referred to the article titled, Case of the Invisible Teacher, which was published on Jan. 23 in the Free Press, as having inaccuracies “including statements in the article that were uninformed and/or patently false.”
In the Free Press investigation, former Steinbach Regional Secondary School teacher Braeden Martens was found not to have a certified teaching certificate or a limited teaching permit despite working at the school since 2021 as a vocational instructor and as a football coach.
According to the Free Press, since no permit was issued by the province, the mandatory provincial safety checks that would be triggered by the application were never done. Martens was fired in January 2025 when allegations of sexual misconduct with minors were raised with the division.
According to the Free Press, Martens was charged in April 2025 by the RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation Unit with luring and invitation to sexual touching following allegations involving two teenaged girls and stemming from his role as a teacher. Currently, three girls have protection orders against Martens. His charges are still before the courts and he is presumed innocent.
Despite the Free Press not finding any record of Martens’ holding a teaching certificate or having a limited teaching permit, in its statement, the school division alleged it had applied for, and was issued, four separate limited teaching permits for Martens between February 2021 and June 2024. It also claimed mandatory child abuse and criminal record checks were also done. The division did acknowledge that an additional limited teaching permit was not issued in the fall of 2024 as HSD had “anticipated” that Martens would be applying for teacher certification.
“At no time did the division bypass required safeguards or employ an individual without appropriate authorization and background checks. Any suggestion to the contrary in the article is false, and any editorial content in reliance upon that false information is defamatory,” read the statement.
Superintendent Joe Thiessen and the principals at SRSS were in charge of hiring Martens and applying for his teaching permits. Board chair Dallas Wiebe stated in a text that he does not believe they dropped the ball in making sure all procedures were followed regarding Martens.
Wiebe also stated the board has, in the past, looked at doing additional record checks on teachers. Wiebe stated the governance committee was “informed that the MTS (Manitoba Teachers’ Society) collective agreement prohibits any changes such as ongoing regular record checks.”
Martens was a member of MTS until August 2025.
According to Wiebe, the board’s decision to perform additional record checks and to be involved in the hiring of music and gym teachers was triggered when former SRSS teacher David Buetti was charged in 2022 with five counts of sexual assault and three counts of sexual interference against girls on the rugby team he coached. Charges against Buetti were eventually dropped by the Crown.
Wiebe didn’t say whether the board will consider being involved with all teacher hirings going forward. He did say that Thiessen will brief the board on documentation and procedures at the board’s upcoming meeting on Feb. 3.
Minister of Education Tracey Schmidt expressed her shock to the Free Press about the Martens matter, stating her department is looking into the fact that the province has “no record” of him holding a teaching certificate and that the department of education has no record of a limited teaching permit being issued.
“As far as the department’s concerned, this individual was never on our radar, and ought to have been, because to teach in a classroom here in Manitoba, you either have to have a teacher certificate, which you get from our department, or have a limited teaching permit, which you also get from our department,” Schmidt told the Free Press at the time.
“So, I have a lot of questions about how exactly this individual was in a classroom at all. I don’t have the answers to that question yet.”
The minister’s office was contacted by The Carillon in regards to measures the province will take to ensure that teachers in Manitoba schools are certified or have teaching permits going forward and that record safety checks are also done, but there was no response by deadline.