A student’s mental health deteriorated and she began to have panic attacks after a teacher began a sexual relationship with her.<\/p>\n
The student became “increasingly distressed” due to constantly lying to her parents to cover up her relationship with Whang\u0101rei Girls’ High School teacher April Marie Nordstrom.<\/p>\n
The student lost focus on school and her relationship with her parents declined.<\/p>\n
Nordstrom’s relationship with the girl and her conduct towards three other students later became the subject of an inquiry by the Teachers’ Disciplinary Tribunal of the Teaching Council.<\/p>\n
She was charged with serious misconduct for engaging in an inappropriate relationship with the student, identified as Student A, and inappropriate behaviour and communication with three others.<\/p>\n
The other students, identified as Student B, C and D, were at Horowhenua College in Levin.<\/p>\n
The tribunal found the charge was proven in a decision dated June last year, but which has been publicly released by it today.<\/p>\n
“Simply on the relationship with Student A, serious misconduct would be proven,” the tribunal’s decision said.<\/p>\n
“Sexual relationships with students are invariably found to be serious misconduct.”<\/p>\n
The decision said that Nordstrom had already stopped teaching during the investigation, but the tribunal cancelled her teacher registration anyway.<\/p>\n
Nordstrom sought a non-publication order to stop her name from being released. The tribunal turned this down.<\/p>\n
It is also allowing the publication of the names of the schools where she taught, although it has redacted the years the students attended to protect their identities.<\/p>\n
According to the New Zealand Planning Institute website, Nordstrom now works for Northland Regional Council as the Kaiawhina Kaupapa Here M\u0101ori (M\u0101ori Policy Planner).<\/p>\n
Whang\u0101rei Girls’ High School today sent a letter to families naming Nordstrom and saying that she had not been employed at the school for “a number of years”.<\/p>\n
It said she had not been a teacher of any of the students currently enrolled there.<\/p>\n
“We want to assure you that this school has no tolerance for teachers that do not adhere to their professional code of conduct and\/or do anything to jeopardise student safety and wellbeing,” the letter said.<\/p>\n
Relationship with Student A<\/p>\n
According to an agreed summary of facts released by the tribunal, Nordstrom engaged in an “inappropriate relationship” with Student A while she was teaching her.<\/p>\n
She communicated with the student throughout the school day and late at night, first on the school email system and then on social media.<\/p>\n
Nordstrom offered the student extra tuition at her home until after 10pm and they then began meeting socially outside school hours.<\/p>\n
“Ms Nordstrom would share intimate personal details with Student A, including that she had a troubled relationship with her partner and was struggling with her sexuality,” the summary of facts said.<\/p>\n
Student A began staying overnight at Nordstrom’s house and their relationship became intimate.<\/p>\n
Nordstrom would pick the student up from home around 10pm and return her early the next morning, without her parents’ knowledge.<\/p>\n
On two occasions, Nordstrom took the student off the school grounds during school hours to engage in sexual activity in her car or at home.<\/p>\n
They began to meet more frequently outside school and the student would tell her parents lies about where she had been.<\/p>\n
Then, the student’s mental health began to decline.<\/p>\n
“Student A started experiencing panic attacks, lost focus on school, and her relationship with her parents deteriorated,” the summary of facts said.<\/p>\n
At one point, after other teachers raised concerns, Nordstrom requested a meeting with then-principal Anne Cooper. The student also attended.<\/p>\n
They told Cooper they were supporting each other with personal issues but did not disclose the extent of their relationship.<\/p>\n
Cooper told Nordstrom to maintain personal boundaries and not meet the student outside of school.<\/p>\n
Ex students blew the whistle<\/p>\n
The true nature of the relationship was uncovered after two former students called Student A’s father to advise him that there was a romantic and sexual relationship going on.<\/p>\n
“They called Student A’s parents as they felt uncomfortable after they became aware that Student A was still a student,” the summary said.<\/p>\n
The student’s parents raised a complaint with the school and its board of trustees. An investigation and a complaint to the Teaching Council were launched.<\/p>\n
Nordstrom resigned from her teaching position.<\/p>\n
The Teaching Council referred Nordstrom to its complaints assessment committee, which uncovered evidence that suggested Nordstrom had engaged in inappropriate relationships and conduct while employed earlier at Horowhenua College.<\/p>\n
It interviewed past students from the college and was told that three students had stayed overnight at Nordstrom’s home, although in separate rooms.<\/p>\n
“During the evening, Ms Nordstrom engaged in inappropriate conversations with the students on topics such as smoking marijuana, partying and drinking alcohol,” the summary said.<\/p>\n
Nordstrom began sending a male student, Student B, inappropriate messages and met him outside school hours.<\/p>\n
Student felt ‘weirded out’<\/p>\n
Eventually, Student B began to feel “weirded out” by Nordstrom’s constant messaging and conduct. He began to avoid her and skipped classes.<\/p>\n
Nordstrom also had out-of-school relationships with two other students, C and D, who, along with her, called themselves “the trio”.<\/p>\n
Student D spent the night at Nordstrom’s house on several occasions, cooking dinner with her and watching movies.<\/p>\n
During these times, Nordstrom would discuss personal issues, including her relationship with her partner and show Student D her Tinder profile.<\/p>\n
She would tell Student D which people on the Tinder app she planned to sleep with.<\/p>\n
When questioned, Nordstrom said she would often answer personal questions from students but this was “akin to a health class discussion”.<\/p>\n
She confirmed discussing the Tinder app with Student D but said it was in an “explorative way, rather than showing people she wanted to sleep with”.<\/p>\n
In addition to cancelling Nordstrom’s registration, the tribunal ordered costs against her of $6600.<\/p>\n
Whang\u0101rei Girls’ High School said in its letter to parents that it had taken “immediate action” against Nordstrom as soon as the matter was brought to its attention.<\/p>\n
“The tribunal has now formally censured April Nordstrom and cancelled her teacher registration so that she can no longer practise as a teacher,” the school said.<\/p>\n
“We thank the Teaching Council and its disciplinary tribunal for taking this matter seriously.”<\/p>\n
– By\u00a0Ric Stevens,\u00a0Open Justice reporter of the NZ Herald\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A student’s mental health deteriorated and she began to have panic attacks after a teacher began a sexual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-303842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}