High school teacher fired for having sex with former student

A B.C. high school teacher has been fired after having sex with a former student just months after the teenager graduated.

The teacher’s behaviour was made public in a disciplinary decision by the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation this week, though most details were held back to protect the identity of the former student.

The document does not provide the name, age or gender of the teacher and does not specify when the misconduct happened or which school district the teacher was working in at the time.

What it does reveal is that the teacher taught the former student for three years, from Grade 10 to Grade 12, and spent “a significant amount of time” with the teenager outside school hours during their senior year.

The teacher began a sexual relationship with the former student in September of the school year the teenager graduated.

The district subsequently fired the teacher, who agreed to have their teaching certificate cancelled. The B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation also barred the teacher from obtaining another certificate to teach classes from kindergarten to Grade 12 in the public or private school systems for 15 years.

“The teacher engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a former student in breach of their fiduciary responsibilities,” the disciplinary decision reads.

The teacher was also found to have “engaged in boundary violations with other students” at school, and was viewed “more as a friend than a teacher,” according to the document.

The decision is the second posted in less than two weeks regarding a teacher who had sex with one or more former students.