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January 10, 2024 - 6:00 PM
A BC teacher has been suspended for the fourth time in nine years.
Coquitlam middle school teacher Arthur Owen Sanderson was disciplined for five separate incidents last school year. He was suspended for two days, and ordered to get counselling and to write a letter of self-reflections to the provincial teaching regulator.
In September 2022, Sanderson made a student do push-ups and suggested he'd make a second student do the same as a form of discipline, according to a recent decision from the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation.
The first student "touched a pencil in a jar" on Sanderson's desk, so they did ten push-ups "while other students were present" in the grade 7 and 8 classroom.
The second student needed help with a combination lock that seemed to be broken. Sanderson said if he tried it and it worked, the student would have to do five push-ups. The decision doesn't say whether the lock worked or if the student did the push-ups.
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On Sept. 14, Sanderson "discretely" told another student the way they were sitting on a counter was "distracting to people."
Another student he saw wearing a shirt with the Playboy logo on it. He asked the student if they knew what it meant and explained it's a "magazine with nude ladies" when the student said no.
The student "reported feeling embarrassed because they did not want anyone getting the wrong idea," the report read.
Sanderson also referred to his students as "handsome," "beautiful" and "gorgeous" regularly, and he told them he "loved them all."
"Some students reported finding this strange," the decision read.
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In November 2022, the Coquitlam school district sent him a letter of discipline and suspended him for four days. Among the included directions in the letter, he was told to maintain professional standards of a teacher and maintain appropriate boundaries with students.
He was told to take responsibility for the "emotional state and wellbeing of students," and not to discipline students in a way that "impacts their learning and achievement."
The provincial regulator stepped in and added another two-day suspension, which he was expected to serve last month. Along with that suspension, he will also take six counselling sessions before Aug. 30 to address his professional boundaries and communications with students.
He will also send a letter to the regulator reflecting on his counselling sessions, his past conduct and how he'll ensure it doesn't happen again.
It's not the first time he was disciplined. In 2021, he brought a three-foot-long python to class as part of his Halloween costume without warning parents or students ahead of time.
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One student was scared and cried upon seeing it, while he scared a teacher when he asked his colleague to put her hand into the pouch where he kept the snake. She was "unsure what she was touching" and ran away when she saw the snake emerge with its tongue out.
Earlier that year, he was suspended for a day after allegations he failed to follow COVID-19 policies, according to the decision.
In February 2015, he was suspended for three days after allegations he "had not properly supervised students in his care."
The teacher of more than 20 years signed the latest consent agreement on Nov. 28, which includes a condition that he will not contradict the agreement's terms or the admissions it contains.
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