Private school teacher suspended for having vodka at school

Rochelle Lynn Craig, the former head of dance at St Kentigern's College, was censured in a decision from the New Zealand Teachers' Disciplinary Tribunal, released today. Photo / iStock

A former teacher from Auckland's exclusive St Kentigern's College has been suspended after she was caught at school with a bottle of vodka, and swore at a junior colleague.

Rochelle Lynn Craig, the former head of dance at St Kentigern's, was censured in a decision from the New Zealand Teachers' Disciplinary Tribunal, released today.

It revealed she also had two drink-driving convictions, one recent, which compounded the decision to hand down an 18-month suspension due to serious misconduct.

Craig was brought before the tribunal after the school made a mandatory report in 2013, following her resignation due to health issues.

The agreed facts set out how another teacher had seen an alcohol bottle sticking out of Craig's handbag in a classroom in 2013.

When asked about the bottle, Craig went into a bathroom and shut the door. She left the school premises, but later returned, and got involved in a confrontation with a junior teacher, which involved swearing in front of students.

As the school had already showed compassion after another incident with alcohol,

it decided this was not acceptable. Craig resigned. She told the tribunal she suffered stress and depression, and at the time had not been sleeping.

She said she'd picked up the bottle of vodka and some lasagna at lunchtime to take to a friend's house. She had not drunk the alcohol, she said.

The tribunal said the behaviour, coupled with a 2013 conviction for drunk driving, compounded the "seriousness of the misconduct".

As such, it did not grant name suppression saying: "It is clearly time for this teacher to face up and deal with her alcohol problem".

Her teaching licence was suspended for 18 months, unless Craig could prove earlier that she was fit to return to teaching. She was seeking treatment, the decision said.