Add Category
A WA teacher has been banned from the profession after he was found to have engaged inappropriately with three students, including hugging them, commenting on their appearances and interacting with them on social media in a personal manner.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has lost his teaching registration for four years after the State Administrative Tribunal found that between 2018 and 2021 he “engaged in serious misconduct the nature of which renders him unfit to be registered as a teacher.”
A WA teacher has been banned for inappropriate behaviour toward students.Credit: Getty
That conduct included fostering a friendship with a student in 2019 by sending her over 1000 personal emails and by sending messages on social media and having one-on-one conversations at the school.
“More specifically, between August 2019 and December 2019 the teacher regularly initiated and exchanged emails and messages on social media with student A without a valid educational reason out of school hours, late at night, on weekends and during school holidays,” the SAT heard.
“The emails contained personalised and overfamiliar language, including at times referring to Student A as his ‘best friend’ and to himself as her ‘second dad’, ‘foster dad’, ‘friend’ and ‘bestie’.”
The inappropriate behaviour continued after the girl graduated from the school with the man sending her over 1200 messages on social media platforms, some of which were of a sexual nature.
The man, who admitted to all of the behaviours and resigned from his job in December 2022, was also found to have offered advice on personal matters to the same student when he was not approved to do so, shared personal information about his family and his mental health with her while she was a student and commented on her appearance by calling her “beautiful”.
He was also found to have shown the same student favouritism through the excessive allocation of reward points, and he invited her to join him for coffee at a café without a valid educational reason.
With a second student the teacher was found to have told her that her “ass and legs” looked good in her black leggings, hugged her on multiple occasions and touched her inappropriately on the upper thigh.