Overview
- The teacher, Robert Ian Collett, taught the student in Grades 11 and 12 and began exchanging emails that shifted from school matters to romantic and intimate language during the student’s Grade 12 year.
- After graduation the emails included sexual content, and within a month the pair met at a restaurant and later at a park where Collett hugged and kissed the former student.
- The school principal reported the matter to the teacher regulator on Aug. 15, 2023, and the school dismissed Collett for cause on Dec. 13, 2023.
- Collett signed an undertaking on May 27, 2024 agreeing not to teach in roles that require provincial certification, and he entered a consent resolution with the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation on June 4, 2026 admitting the conduct and accepting a 10-year ban on reapplying for a teaching certificate.
- The regulator said the penalty was appropriate because Collett failed to maintain professional boundaries and his actions could have harmed the student’s emotional well-being, and the case illustrates how independent schools, employers, and the BCCTR use reports, employment discipline, undertakings, and consent resolutions to protect student safety.