A Vancouver Island high school teacher had his teaching licence permanently revoked for exploiting a vulnerable 15-year-old student.
In the 2007-08 school year, Ian Alexander Stephen McKenzie was a Grade 10 physical education teacher at a school in the Sooke district. The 15-year-old student was in his class.
McKenzie admitted he knew the student was “vulnerable and felt unsupported,” according to a public notice posted by the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation.
When the student was in Grade 10, the student had confided in McKenzie about a personal matter. McKenzie breached professional boundaries throughout the school year, said the notice.
When the student was in Grade 12, he entered a “more personal and intimate relationship” with the student, including sending personal emails and texts, making comments of a sexual nature, spending time after school and at his home with the student, and engaging in “long hugs.”
McKenzie told the student the relationship had to be secret and they could “officially date” when the student was 18.
McKenzie and the student began dating after the student graduated, and their relationship became sexual within months after the student finished high school.
The relationship came to light in August 2022, when a complaint was made to the provincial disciplinary body about McKenzie, who had been a social studies and PE teacher at the school starting in 2007.
The commissioner ordered an investigation. On Sept. 9, 2022, McKenzie admitted to professional misconduct and agreed to the cancellation of his teaching certificate and a lifelong ban to teaching in the K-12 education system.
In revoking his teaching licence, the commissioner noted that McKenzie knew the student was vulnerable and used his position to exploit her.
“The relationship grew out of the teacher-student relationship, in which McKenzie had a position of power and trust,” said the notice. McKenzie allowed that relationship to become “exploitative of the student for his own personal and sexual advantage.”
The Sooke school district has six secondary schools in the communities of Sooke and West Shore.
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