Female teacher struck off ordered to pay $3500 of disciplinary costs

Kelsey Rebekah Allen was a newly-graduated teacher at Morrinsville College in Waikato when she started a relationship with an 18-year-old student. Photo / iStock

A female teacher struck off for sleeping with a student has been ordered to pay a third of the disciplinary proceeding costs.

Kelsey Rebekah Allen was a newly-graduated physical education and health teacher at Morrinsville College in Waikato when she started a relationship with an 18-year-old student in late 2014.

Allen, then 22, had a months-long relationship with the student that involved kissing, oral sex and sexual intercourse.

It started when Allen began counselling the student, the New Zealand Teachers' Disciplinary Tribunal heard last year.

The pair exchanged thousands of intimate texts between August and November 2014.

They were eventually outed by the student's jilted school-aged girlfriend.

A decision by tribunal chairman Kenneth Johnson said the starting point for costs was 50 per cent.

However, given Allen's financial situation, the amount would be reduced to a third in this case.

She was ordered to pay $3500 of the total costs of $10,689.25 incurred by the Complaints Assessment Committee.

Allen has been unable to find work since September 2015 after losing her teaching registration and has had to move back in with her parents.

At Allen's first disciplinary hearing, released in October last year, the tribunal heard Allen had taken full responsibility and accepted her actions were "foolish and inappropriate".

She has since undertaken professional counselling for "the boundary issue" and dealing with stressful life situations.