A letter of apology has been sent to parents after it was revealed that a teacher had been allowed to work at their child’s high school despite getting into trouble at his previous school for using a student’s computer login information to access pornographic and “rape” images.
South Australia’s Education Department blamed an “administrative” oversight for allowing the teacher to return to the classroom in a letter sent to parents at Springbank Secondary College, where the teacher was found working this month.
The teacher, a father of three who has not been identified for legal reasons, was employed by the school in Pasendena, south of Adelaide, in August 2021.
The original scandal occurred at Naracoorte High School in 2004 and the teacher was arrested again two years later for violating departmental rules on internet use. He kept his job but received a reprimand and psychological counselling.
The boy whose username was used was suspended and then bullied until he dropped out of school before completing Year 10.
The student is now a family man with a successful business and reported the professor in 2011 after seeking Freedom of Information documents from the department.
“It’s the course I was able to take, but I feel very sorry for the students who had to deal with the department; this was a failure of process on the part of the department,” he said. The Adelaide Advertiser.
Nearly ten years after the scandal, the teacher was suspended from his job with pay in October 2013 and later moved to a non-teaching position. At the time he was working at Reynella East College as a year eight pupil coordinator.
Parents of Springbank Secondary College students received the apology letter this month
A teacher who had viewed pornography on a school computer and tried to hide it by using a student’s username was allowed to continue teaching (stock)
When the teacher was suspended in 2013, the principals of Reynella East College and Aberfoyle Park High, where the man had also worked, sent a letter of apology to parents.
The letter said the police were not involved as they determined no laws had been broken.
The department gave the student a $30,000 settlement, which he described as hush money after having to sign an agreement not to talk about the incident, which he regrets.
Former South African Prime Minister Jay Weatherill later waived the confidentiality agreement after learning of the case.
The former student said he alerted the department that the teacher had returned to the classroom in early July of this year and received a response letter blaming an official who has since left and the Teachers Registration Board, which did not cancel the teacher’s registration.
He said the department offered him 10 counseling sessions and declined to disclose where else the teacher might have worked as it was a “private employment matter.”
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the South Australian Department of Education and the Teachers Registration Board for comment.
The teacher also worked at Aberfoyle Park High School in Adelaide.
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