The teacher has been deregistered following a complaint about her behaviour by a student. Photo / 123rf
A teacher who regularly swore at students, spoke about her sex life and students’ sex lives told students she was “untouchable” and wouldn’t be fired if they complained.
But a student did complain about her extensive behavioural issues during 2019 and 2020, and she has now been told she will no longer be able to teach.
The Teacher’s Disciplinary Tribunal heard from a psychiatrist who believed the woman had likely suffered a major depressive disorder during this time.
As a result, her registration has been cancelled for serious misconduct after 26 years of teaching.
“Ultimately, we have little information to work with if we were to consider a more positive outcome than cancellation,” tribunal deputy chairperson Tim Mackenzie said in a recently released decision.
“And in any event, [the teacher] has not asked us to do so, instead accepting cancellation is appropriate.”
The teacher, who has name suppression, first became fully registered in 2000.
On October 30, 2020, the Teaching Council received a mandatory report filed by the principal of the school she was teaching at, alleging that she had bullied a student and acted in an unprofessional manner unbecoming of the teaching profession.
There were a total of 14 allegations made about the teacher in the complaint, which included a number of incidents. All students’ names and the name of the school are suppressed.
In early August 2020, the teacher found out about oral sex that had taken place between her student and another student at a party. Later, when the student was having her photo taken, the teacher said “smile properly, everyone knows you have a big mouth”.
During term 3 of 2020, the teacher frequently swore in daily conversation and at students in class, mainly using the “f-word” and she regularly swore back at students who swore at her.
She called a student a “f****** r*****” twice during the same period when he asked for help in class.
On one of these occasions, she asked him to look in his workbook for the answer and said “you must be a f****** r***** if you can’t work it out”. She said this while laughing like it was banter, the decision said.
During her time teaching, two students died. A few days before the anniversary of one of the students’ deaths she said to two students that the former girlfriend of the student was overreacting, saying “they weren’t married so she shouldn’t be upset”.
She also spoke often of an alleged sexual assault on her by another staff member at the school. She told the students she “had the school equivalent of a restraining order” against the woman who had “tried to make moves on her”.
Before the lockdown in 2020, the teacher was talking to students when she brought up the staff member. She said she had been leaving school one day when the staff member pinned her against the fence and started undressing her. The students felt awkward and changed the subject, the decision said.
She told the tribunal she never reported the alleged sexual assault.
The teacher also referred to another member of staff as a “creepy paedo” in front of students and said she wouldn’t sit next to a specific teacher as they were bisexual.
She often spoke about her sex life with students, including saying that since she began going to the gym and got a boyfriend, “I have sex before and after school, that’s why all the teachers are jealous of me”.
She also used the dating app Tinder and social media app Snapchat during class and showed students men on Tinder.
The teacher regularly took photos of herself during class, especially in Term 3 of 2020. She would also often initiate selfies with students. Sometimes she would take photos without asking.
Other times, she would ask the student’s consent, but take the photo anyway when the student said no, such as by quickly trying to take the photo while the student was not paying attention.
She either said that she was going to post them on Snapchat and social media, or asked for permission to post them. She would often post them even if students said no and often sent them to former students.
She also videocalled some students and met others for coffee and alcohol outside of school. She stated multiple times in class that she was “untouchable”, and nobody could fire her because the school needed her.
She told students who said they were going to make a complaint about her to “go and complain, people have complained about me for years and I have never got in trouble”.
“The conduct is extensive,” Mackenzie said.
“It involves dozens of incidents of inappropriate behaviour. Even one or some of these incidents could likely amount to serious misconduct.
“When taken together the conduct easily meets the tests for serious misconduct. The conduct was likely to adversely affect students.”
In September 2020, a student made a formal complaint to the school in regard to the teacher’s behaviour.
The teacher said the allegations were “shocking”. She said some were completely false and exaggerated but acknowledged that she had behaved inappropriately at times in 2020.
She initially denied all allegations before later acknowledging some of her interactions with students had become unprofessional as she struggled to manage classroom behaviour while under personal stress.
“However, while she may have let her conversations with students become casualised and occasionally swore at them when frustrated, she never meant to cause any harm,” the decision said.
She told the tribunal she had become unwell following a physical assault in 2019 and that by lockdown in 2020 she had been diagnosed with depression, telogen effluvium, which is a form of hair loss, immune system failure, and that bloods indicated liver and kidney issues.
Her dosage of Citalopram, the anti-depressant she had been taking since late 2019, was doubled. She said that increased impulsivity is a potential side-effect of this medication.
The teacher provided the tribunal with medical information, including an opinion from a psychiatrist. That psychiatrist saw her three times in May and June 2024 and their opinion was that in 2019-2020 the teacher suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, secondary to sexual harassment, leading to major depressive disorder.
The teacher accepted she had committed serious misconduct and supported being deregistered.
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.