The decision said Spicer had worked as a teacher at the school since 2016 but took time off in 2022 before returning in 2023. <\/p>\n
That year, a student and her friends talked to Spicer at school and told him they\u2019d found his TikTok account.<\/p>\n
Spicer then showed the students his TikTok account on his phone.<\/p>\n
On TikTok, accounts can message other accounts if they follow one another.<\/p>\n
Later in the year, while scrolling TikTok, the student came across Spicer\u2019s account again and she followed him.<\/p>\n
Spicer followed the student back and they exchanged several messages.<\/p>\n
Spicer messaged \u201cHi\u201d, with several \u201ceye\u201d emojis. The student replied, \u201cHi? Who is this?\u201d as she was unsure who was messaging her. Spicer clarified it was him and asked, \u201cwhat time are you going to sleep?\u201d before saying, \u201cOh, your outfit was really pretty today\u201d.<\/p>\n
The student said she found this comment weird, the decision said.<\/p>\n
Spicer then said, \u201cOh, you should come, like, see me\u201d, to which she replied, \u201cum, okay\u201d.<\/p>\n
At some point during this conversation, the student asked Spicer if he would like to know another students\u2019 TikTok account details. He said he would.<\/p>\n
Spicer went on to tell the student they would have to unfollow and block each other on TikTok because \u201cteachers can\u2019t text kids\u201d.<\/p>\n
The student tried to block Spicer but he then messaged her saying, \u201cHi, it\u2019s funny how we can like, still text\u201d.<\/p>\n
Spicer sent further messages to the student. She decided to delete her TikTok account and create a new one so Spicer could not message her. <\/p>\n
Teacher messaged a second student<\/p>\n
Also in 2023, Spicer interacted inappropriately with another student at the school. <\/p>\n
At that time, she had done something different with her hair and he told her, \u201cOh, your hair looks nice\u201d.<\/p>\n
The comment made the student feel \u201ca bit off\u201d and \u201ca bit sick\u201d, the decision said.<\/p>\n
The teacher used social media platform TikTok to contact the students. Photo \/ File<\/p>\n
Spicer went on to follow the student\u2019s TikTok account and began messaging her.<\/p>\n
The conversation included him saying, \u201cJust want you to know that I liked your hair Oi! Dunno if I said!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou did but thanks again,\u201d the student responded. <\/p>\n
He later messaged: \u201cOi soooooooo teachers aren\u2019t really meant to follow kids. So I\u2019m gonna have to remove you sorry. But add me back anytime you wanna chat.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pair unfollowed each other but Spicer sent a further message late at night asking: \u201cYou still get this?\u201d, which she did. <\/p>\n
Spicer continued to send occasional messages to the girl. They included him telling her what he was doing with his family and other various topics. The student did not respond.<\/p>\n
The decision said that while Spicer messaged both students on TikTok, the girls talked to each other on separate social media platforms, updating each other on what he was saying to each of them. <\/p>\n
Father discovered messages<\/p>\n
An investigation began when the second student\u2019s father found the messages on her phone.<\/p>\n
The father went to the school and raised the messages with a support teacher, who then went to principal Kylie Morris.<\/p>\n
The principal submitted a mandatory report to the Teaching Council and spoke about the complaint with Spicer, who deleted his TikTok account. <\/p>\n
She also sent Spicer a formal email explaining the school would be notifying Oranga Tamariki and the police. No action was taken by either agency.<\/p>\n
Spicer was suspended from his teaching position on July 25, 2023, while the matter was investigated.<\/p>\n
On September 1, the principal advised the Teaching Council the school had not completed its investigation into Spicer\u2019s conduct because he had resigned.<\/p>\n
When the matter was later heard by the tribunal, the first student said she felt the way Spicer behaved on TikTok was different from how he was at school and it made her feel \u201creally uncomfortable\u201d.<\/p>\n
The second student said Spicer\u2019s messages made her feel \u201csick to her stomach\u201d, \u201cuneasy\u201d, and \u201cuncomfortable\u201d. She avoided Spicer at school after he had messaged her.<\/p>\n
She had attended counselling because of what had taken place.<\/p>\n
Spicer wanted to be \u2018relateable\u2019<\/p>\n
Spicer told the tribunal he took a break from teaching in 2022 so he and his wife could renovate a home and their first child arrived soon after.<\/p>\n
When he returned to teaching in 2023, he struggled with the new work-life balance.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe stated that to try to make life easier in the classroom and be more relatable to students, he kept his TikTok account open,\u201d the decision said.<\/p>\n
He said he \u201cmistakenly thought that this might help students better respond to my instructions within the classroom, but instead I ended up responding to a student\u2019s message\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking back, I know it wouldn\u2019t have made an ounce of difference to how students behaved in the classroom. It went against not only my own training as a teacher, but also the curriculum I taught students about how to be safe online,\u201d he told the tribunal.<\/p>\n
He said he was \u201ctruly disappointed in himself\u201d, the decision said. <\/p>\n
Spicer declined to comment when approached by NZME.<\/p>\n
Tribunal chairperson Jo Hughson said in the decision that Spicer\u2019s conduct was \u201crelatively limited in scope and there were relatively few messages\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were also no distinct sexual or romantic themes in Mr Spicer\u2019s messaging and his conduct never translated into inappropriate in-person interactions or other types of boundary breaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn saying that, some of Mr Spicer\u2019s comments in his messages were personal and unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morris acknowledged the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe staff member\u2019s employment ended at that time and they have not returned to the school,\u201d she told NZME.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Teaching Council\u2019s Disciplinary Tribunal has confirmed that the school acted appropriately and professionally in its handling of the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe safety and wellbeing of our students is our highest priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll staff are trained in child protection practices, including appropriate professional boundaries and online communication.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brianna McIlraith is a Queenstown-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the lower South Island. She has been a journalist since 2018 and has had a strong interest in business and financial journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decision said Spicer had worked as a teacher at the school since 2016 but took time off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74,193914,138,27079,13838,2347,6288,6451,101,60677,37881,111,139,69,182939,33285,27916,193913,3767,7574,613],"class_list":["post-370769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-after","tag-anyway","tag-business","tag-censured","tag-girls","tag-grant","tag-hamilton","tag-knew","tag-left","tag-messages","tag-messaging","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-preteen","tag-shouldnt","tag-sick","tag-spicer","tag-students","tag-teacher","tag-tiktok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370769","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=370769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}