Teacher struck off for teen relationship

A teacher who formed a relationship with a 17-year-old girl has been struck off the register of teachers.

The teacher, whose name is suppressed, was 25 years older than the girl. The pair are still in a relationship, which formed in December 2016 when the girl had just finished Year 13.

He came before the Teachers’ Disciplinary Tribunal in November 2018.

In a decision released this week, the tribunal found the man’s actions amounted to serious misconduct.

The decision said the teacher and student became Facebook friends in June

2014, and in late 2015 the teacher started attending events the student was participating in.

The teacher and student went public with their relationship in late December

2016, when they told the girl’s mother they were together. That was just after the teacher had left his job at the school and the girl had completed her schooling there.

When the girl’s father was told about the relationship in January 2017, he complained to the Teaching Council.

The teacher refused to provide his cell phone and computer records to the school, which the tribunal findings said ‘‘makes us strongly suspect that the relationship between the respondent and student began before she finished her secondary schooling’’.

The tribunal said it would take the position that the ‘‘intimate relationship’’ began when the pair went public – but even then, the matter of that being ‘‘mere weeks’’ after the girl finished school meant the relationship met the threshold of being inappropriate.

The ‘‘very significant’’ age difference, power imbalance and vulnerability of the student also satisfied the tribunal that the relationship was inappropriate.

The teacher had previously received two warnings from the school about maintaining professional boundaries with students.

The tribunal noted that the case demonstrated the ‘‘risk associated with teachers engaging with students via social media about personal matters’’.

‘‘[It is] teachers, not students, who bear the onus to distance themselves from a potentially inappropriate situation.’’

The tribunal said the teacher exhibited a ‘‘profound lack of professional judgement, which inevitably reflects adversely on his fitness to teach’’.

It ordered that the teacher was censured and his registration was cancelled.