Teacher given 10-week suspension for sending inappropriate texts to student in 2017

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — A B.C. high school teacher has been suspended for 10 weeks, bringing an end to an investigation that has taken nearly three years to complete.

The investigation was launched in 2017 after the educator had exchanged thousands of text messages — some of them inappropriate — with a student over a five month period.

According to Teacher Regulation documents, the teacher claimed they wanted to “council” the student after the student expressed they had “a desire to harm themselves.”

“This was contrary to the District’s critical incident policy which requires teachers who are concerned about self-harm to report the matter to school administrators so that a risk assessment can be done and parents can be notified,” the document reads.

The educator was teaching the 12th grade.

All identities have been kept private, but according to the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, the individual continued to contact the student inappropriately even after the student’s parents had intervened.

The suspension was handed down after the teacher had already transferred schools in 2018, and even sent gifts to the student.

T-DE-2020

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