A former Sooke School District teacher has had his teaching certificate cancelled after a “personal and intimate” relationship with a student turned sexual within months of the student’s graduation.
Ian Alexander Stephen McKenzie taught social studies and physical education from 2007 until September 2022 at the school the student attended, which is not named.
His penalty was handed down by the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, and includes an agreement that he will never apply for a teaching certificate and can never be issued one.
Prior to the commissioner’s decision, McKenzie was given an undertaking Sept. 9, 2022 not to teach kindergarten to Grade 12 following a complaint made to the commissioner on Aug. 26, 2022.
The decision said McKenzie had the student in his Grade 10 physical education class in 2007-8 when the student was 15, and was aware that the student was “vulnerable and felt unsupported.”
The student began to confide in him about personal matters, the decision said, which led to McKenzie breaching “appropriate professional boundaries.”
It said their relationship became more intimate in the spring of the student’s Grade 12 year and included McKenzie sending personal emails and texts to the student, making comments to the student of a sexual nature, spending time with the student after school and at his home, “and engaging in long hugs and similar touching.”
McKenzie told the student that their relationship “had to be kept secret” and that official dating could happen when the student turned 18, the decision said.
The two began to date after the student graduated, and sexual activity followed, it said.
McKenzie admitted that the conduct set out in the decision occurred and constituted professional misconduct.
The commissioner noted in making the decision that the relationship resulted from a teacher-student relationship where McKenzie was in “a position of power and trust.”
“McKenzie allowed the teacher-student relationship to become exploitative of the student for his own personal and sexual advantage,” the decision said.
