A British Columbia secondary school teacher has been banned for 15 years after it was revealed that they had developed a relationship with a student.The educator, who has not been identified, admitted to exchanging "increasingly personal and intimate messages" with the pupil and speaking with them on the phone over 1,000 times.According to a consent agreement, their communication began via the school's Microsoft Teams platform. Over a three-week period, they exchanged more than 190 messages, typically between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and midnight, often "giving each other compliments about their physical appearance and about having a slow dance together."Three weeks later, the pair attended a social event hosted by the school. At the end of the evening, they discussed the teacher picking the student up. The latter gave the former their phone number.From there, their conversation moved to the telephone, with the teacher and student calling one another incessantly for 16 months. Many of the calls lasted over 1.5 hours..The school district sensed something was up, and confronted the teacher. They initially denied any wrongdoing, but on March 8, 2024, they were suspended under section 15(5) of the School Act, which states that "if the superintendent of schools is of the opinion that the welfare of the students is threatened by the presence of an employee, the superintendent may suspend the employee, with pay, from the performance of the employee's duties."The teacher's certificate of qualification was suspended on April 17, 2024 after they admitted that their conduct violated the Teachers Act and the Professional Standards for BC Educators.The commissioner argued that the teacher "misused their position of power and trust to exploit a student for the teacher’s own personal advantage" constituting a "fundamental breach of a teacher’s duty to students and to the public," and that the teacher was "dishonest and did not maintain the integrity, credibility and reputation of the profession."Whether the relationship ever turned physical was not revealed.
