A former Vancouver Island teacher has been stripped of his teaching license for good after his intimate relationship with a student “became sexual within months of the student’s graduation,” according to the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation (BCCTR).
The BCCRT in a discipline outcome posted Tuesday, Sept. 19, says Ian Alexander Stephen McKenzie was employed as a high school teacher by the Sooke School District (SD62) from May 2006 to Sept. 9, 2022, when he was given an undertaking not to teach in the kindergarten to grade 12 education system.
That came after a complaint was made to the teachers’ commissioner about McKenzie on Aug. 26, 2022, the same day the commissioner ordered an investigation under the Teachers Act.
According to the discipline outcome, McKenzie taught social studies and physical education at the school from 2007 until September 2022, and in the 2007-08 school year, he taught phys ed. 10 to a 15-year-old student.
McKenzie was aware that this student “was vulnerable and felt unsupported,” states the outcome, and when the student was in grade 10 they began to confide in the former teacher about personal matters.
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“McKenzie breached appropriate professional boundaries throughout the student’s grade 10 year. In the spring of the year, when the student was in grade 12, McKenzie entered into a more personal and intimate relationship with the student,” wrote the BCCTR.
It says this included emails and texts of a personal nature, comments to the student of a sexual nature, spending time with the student after school and at McKenzie’s home, and engaging in long hugs and similar touching.
“McKenzie told the student that this relationship had to be kept secret and said that they could ‘officially date’ when the student was 18,” the regulation wrote.
“Shortly after the student graduated, McKenzie and the Student began dating, and this relationship became sexual within months of the student’s graduation.”
The BCCTR says McKenzie admitted that the investigation’s findings were true and that his actions were contrary to the Standards for the Education, Competence and Professional Conduct of Educators in British Columbia.
It says McKenzie’s relationship with the student grew out of a teacher-student relationship, “in which McKenzie had a position of power and trust,” adding that he “allowed the teacher-student relationship to become exploitative of the student for his own personal and sexual advantage.”
The student’s identity was not disclosed in the outcome.
The BCCTR says McKenzie can never again apply for, and will never again be issued, a teaching certificate in the kindergarten to grade 12 education system. He also can’t make a statement, orally or written, that contradicts the terms in the agreement.
The full discipline outcome is here.
Ethan Morneau
