VANCOUVER — A former West Vancouver private school teacher has been found guilty of professional misconduct for having inappropriate communications with four Grade 7 girls using Instagram and a school-approved Google Chat platform.
In a hearing before a panel appointed by the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, Jeffrey Forden Mooney was found to have used “sexual references and innuendo” in chats, often late at night, with one student. He asked her not to take screenshots or share the messages with her friends for fear of getting fired, and offered to finish a homework assignment for her if she stayed quiet.
With three others, he used profanity, made comments about other students and asked about who they had crushes on; made derogatory comments about another school staffer; called one of the girls “cool”; and again asked that they keep the messages secret. He made a friend request to one and bragged to her about his condo and how much it had gone up in value since he bought it — claims that were later found to be lies aimed at impressing her.
When evidence was given to the school about the exchanges in June and July 2021, the district demanded Mooney follow an improvement plan, but the chats continued after that plan was in place.
Among many sexually suggestive messages, Mooney at one point wrote that adults are the best because “we can drive and drink and buy shit and have sex and do alllll the fun stuff.” After one girl called him a “weirdo,” he replied: “Says the girl who knows all the lyrics to WAP,” a song acronym that’s a profane reference to female genitals.
Mooney did not appear before the panel. In fact, after notices were returned undeliverable from his last known address, a skip tracer was hired to track him down who was unsuccessful in finding him. So the findings were made in absentia at a hearing in June where oral and written submissions were received from counsel for the commissioner.
The panel said the evidence amounts to clear breaches of the professional standards of conduct for B.C. educators, which call for teachers to have the best interests of students in mind at all times, to keep them emotionally and physically safe, and not to abuse their position of power and trust.
“The commissioner submits that the tenor of the messages in large part are efforts by the respondent to establish a personal relationship with the students,” read the ruling posted online Tuesday, “and the sexual innuendo in some of the messages raises the spectre of grooming.”
The fact that the girls were apparently willing to continue the discussions “does not ameliorate their inappropriateness,” according to the decision.
“The inescapable conclusion reached by this panel is that the respondent knowingly used his position of trust in an attempt to form a personal relationship with the students beyond that of educator and student.”
The finding of misconduct was made even though Mooney gave up his teaching certificate in October 2021, after some chats were shared with administrators by the girls’ parents and others were retrieved by the school information technology director. That’s because the Teachers Act allows for rulings on professional misconduct even after a teacher no longer works in the profession.
A decision on Mooney’s penalty and payment for the cost of the proceedings has not been made.
