A former B.C. independent school principal has lost his teaching certificate after using school funds for personal expenses.
The educator, Kelly Rambeau, worked as a principal at an unspecified independent First Nations school in B.C., according to a consent resolution agreement released by the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation (BCCTR) on Tuesday.
The commissioner says that between 2015 and 2018, Rombeau reported expenses to the school that included personal purchases that were submitted for reimbursement.
In 2018, the school launched a forensic accounting report, which found that between July 1, 2015, and Oct. 23, 2018, Rambeau had obtained between $286,000 and $337,000 from the school.
That money included funds for unauthorized expenses, as well as expenses that had already been reimbursed, but that Rambeau reimbursed himself for a second time.
There were also funds allocated to another person, identified as “Person A,” who Rambeau said he had hired to perform administrative duties for the school.
Rambeau was fired from the school in October 2018, and one month later the school launched a civil lawsuit against him and Person A.
The lawsuit alleged that Rambeau had committed fraud and that he used school money to buy or fund real estate.
He disputed those claims and in June 2022 the two parties settled the lawsuit, which included an agreement that Rambeau would pay $175,000 to the school, as well as acknowledge his conduct and apologize.
Through the agreement, Rambeua admitted he was reimbursed for the same expense claims multiple times.
“I was careless with the school finance and benefited from the reimbursements for personal expenses that I was not entitled to,” he said in the agreement.
The BCCTR was tasked with reviewing the incident in August 2022, and on Aug. 29, 2023, the BCCTR decided to cancel Rambeau’s teaching certificate.
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Adam Chan
