The names of the teacher, student and school, as well as any details identifying them, were suppressed in the tribunal\u2019s decision, released today. <\/p>\n
According to the decision, the man was the victim\u2019s learning support co-ordinator (LSC) for three years and had ongoing contact with her and her mother. <\/p>\n
The LSC role involved one-on-one interactions with students and after-school contact by phone or email where required. <\/p>\n
Some messaging between the man and the student had been initiated with permission from the girl\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
From around July to August 2023, the man developed and maintained an inappropriate relationship with the Year 11 student, spending large amounts of time with her, the decision stated. <\/p>\n
When they were in the LSC space together, he would sit on the floor and couch with the girl, which he would not do with other students. <\/p>\n
He touched his knees against the student\u2019s under a table on at least one occasion. <\/p>\n
The school principal issued him with a warning about his behaviour; despite that, he began to inappropriately message her.<\/p>\n
In the texts he sent outside school hours, including in the evenings, at night and in the early hours of the morning, he would compliment her appearance and express personal feelings for her. <\/p>\n
When the student mentioned a sexual encounter she had with another person, he responded, \u201cThat\u2019s your choice, that\u2019s different, obviously weren\u2019t thinking of me then\u201d. <\/p>\n
When the student would not reply quickly or wished to end the conversation, he would react bitterly or pressure her, once saying that her behaviour was affecting his sleep. <\/p>\n
He asked her whether she was \u201cignoring me again\u201d and complained, \u201cInstead of talking to me you went ghost mode\u201d. <\/p>\n
Once he said, \u201cIf you want to p*** me off you\u2019re going the right way\u201d. <\/p>\n
The student would set boundaries by telling the man their relationship had \u201cgone too far\u201d and that they needed to step back from each other. <\/p>\n
In August 2023, the girl blocked the teacher\u2019s phone number. He then went on sick leave and resigned in April 2024. <\/p>\n
The school principal was told about the message after the student showed it to another teacher in late August 2023.<\/p>\n
Police investigated the matter after being informed by the principal, but determined the threshold for charges of grooming a young person was not met. <\/p>\n
The student spoke with police but did not provide an evidential video interview. <\/p>\n
In February 2024, the man signed a voluntary undertaking not to teach and has not taught since. <\/p>\n
At a Complaints Assessment Committee (CAC) meeting in June 2025, the teacher accepted that his communication had crossed boundaries and expressed remorse for his actions, which he said had caused harm. <\/p>\n
The student felt uncomfortable, confused and afraid about the situation, but did not want to lose the learning support she received from the teacher, the decision said. <\/p>\n
The tribunal found the man engaged in serious misconduct. <\/p>\n
He was censured, his teaching registration was cancelled and he was ordered to pay the CAC $5144 for legal costs and 40% of the tribunal\u2019s costs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The names of the teacher, student and school, as well as any details identifying them, were suppressed in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18431,19340,74,35196,60128,42,16133,11285,11517,43,8998,75839,520,13109,9631,7574,40,38,41,39,9438,102],"class_list":["post-507484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-16yearold","tag-abused","tag-after","tag-difficulties","tag-engaging","tag-headlines","tag-inappropriate","tag-learning","tag-loses","tag-news","tag-position","tag-registration","tag-relationship","tag-several","tag-student","tag-teacher","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trust","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507484","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=507484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}