Image Credit: ADOBE STOCK

Two Lower Mainland teachers that shared details online about a former student who was having a relationship with a teacher have been suspended for 10 days.

Teachers Kelsey Levi Knirkholt Stevens and Carissa Lynn Keenan both signed a consent agreement resolution admitting to their behaviour and agreed on a further one-day suspension from teaching.

According to a July 6 B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation decision, both Stevens and Keenan worked for the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school district and lived in the same house when the incident occurred.

In November 2019 the pair learned that a family member, who was also a teacher and also lived in the same house, was having an intimate relationship with one of their former students.

The family member having the relationship subsequently moved out of the home but left behind a laptop.

According to the decision, the laptop had previously been owned by the school district and contained information about the former student.

Instead of reporting the family member that was having the relationship to the school district or teaching regulator, Stevens and Keenan put together a "package of information" about "how to report" the family member.

"The package included a letter which disclosed the (former student's) full name, the fact that she was formerly a student in the district, highly personal information about the (former student) and the family member, and information about the (former student) which Stevens had retrieved from the laptop," the decision reads.

Stevens and Keenan both signed a letter that was in the "information package."

The decision says 20 copies of the package were made and at least 10 copies were distributed by Stevens and Keenan.

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In July 2020, Stevens and Keenan personally gave the package to two of their friends and by the end of that month copies of the package were being widely distributed in public places as well as on the internet.

The decision says this caused the former student "great embarrassment and upset."

Shortly afterwards the former student complained to the teaching regulator.

In March, both teachers were suspended by the school district for 10 days.

Now, both Stevens and Keenan have agreed to a further one-day suspension implemented by the Commissioner for Teacher Regulation.

Both teachers admitted to professional misconduct and conduct unbecoming of a teacher.

"(Keenan and) Stevens failed to model appropriate behaviour of an educator in their disclosure of confidential information of a former School District student," the decision ruled.

The decision does not say if any action was taken against the teacher having a relationship with the former student.

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