A teacher has been denied the right to “retire with dignity” after she was found to have had sex with a male student and kissed his friend at the start of her career.

The woman, who has name suppression, asked the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal not to penalise her despite having sex with one senior college-age student, and kissing another, at her first teaching job in the 1980s.

It took nearly 40 years for one of those students to come forward to tell the Teaching Council that he felt “unclean, abused and misused” after what had happened.

He said his grades fell, and he dropped out of his first year of university and began abusing drugs and alcohol.

According to the summary of facts released by the tribunal, the teacher taught ‘Student A’ at a high school in Auckland in the 1980s. Following a field trip to an art exhibition, she asked him if he wanted to go and visit another student at the hospital.

Student A and the teacher went back to her place to get some money to buy the hospitalised student a gift, but they both ended up at a picnic table outside her home, drinking wine.

‘That was really nice’

At this point, the teacher told her student she wanted to sleep with him, before leading him by the hand to her bedroom, where they had sex for a few minutes before stopping.

The teacher then dropped the student home and said, “That was really nice, we should do it again sometime”.

The student told a classmate (Student B) what had happened, and no further sexual contact occurred between them.

However, later the same year, Student B held a party at his house to celebrate achieving University Entrance and the teacher was invited.

Student B and his teacher began kissing in a park next to the house, before continuing in her car. At some point, the teacher drove them both back to her flat, where she touched the student inappropriately and removed her top.

When a flatmate walked in and saw the pair, the teacher suggested they go to her bedroom, but the student refused and then left the flat.

A complaint is made

The woman continued teaching and was more recently working for one of the country’s top private girls’ schools.

It’s unclear if she was still working there when Student A made a complaint to the Teaching Council in 2022.

At a hearing of the tribunal late last year, the teacher admitted that she’d engaged in sexual conduct with the two complainants.

The Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal held a hearing for the historical complaints last year. Photo / Jeremy Wilkinson

A decision released this year states that she is now retired.

However, she asked that she be allowed to retire with dignity by way of being deregistered, rather than having her licence cancelled. She also asked that her name be removed from the register altogether.

The tribunal said it couldn’t deregister a teacher without a disciplinary finding and that it was required to provide notice of cancellation.

The tribunal said that its only option was to cancel the woman’s teaching registration.

“…a teacher found liable on a serious misconduct charge for a sexual relationship with a student (or here, students) would face an uphill battle to persuade the Tribunal of a lesser outcome,” its ruling reads.

“We note that the matters are now historic. That does not change our view.”

The tribunal ordered that the woman’s teaching registration be cancelled, and ordered her to pay $2550 in legal costs. It also awarded her permanent name suppression.

The woman’s lawyer told NZME she had no comment.

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.