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June 09, 2021 - 7:30 AM
For ongoing conversations about vaping with his students, a B.C. teacher was formally reprimanded this month.
The B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation published a consent resolution on Tuesday, June 8, explaining how Terrence Andrew Makofka “engaged in inappropriate conversations with students during class time” while working at a high school in the Pacific Rim district.
The first vaping conversation happened Dec. 6, 2018 when he was a teacher on call. A parent complained to the school he’d discussed vaping with a class and five days later the principal spoke with him and asked him to stop.
Just a few months later, on March 26, 2019, a Grade 9 student asked him about vaping during PE. They wanted to know the amount of nicotine in his vape.
“In the context of advising the student how he had just quit vaping, Makofka answered the student’s question about tapering down nicotine levels and then told the student what his favourite vaping flavours were and where these could be purchased,” according to the agreement.
This contravened the direction the principal gave him so on June 27, 2019 the district sent him a letter of discipline and suspended him for five days from the TOC list.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been flagged for inappropriate behaviour. On June 8, 2016 the district issued Makofka a letter of discipline and suspended him from the TOC for four days for failure to properly cared for an injured student.
On Dec. 14, 2016 he got another letter and suspended for the TOC list for 10 days for failure to inform school administration that a fight had broken out between two students, resulting in an injury to one.
This time, the B.C. Teachers Regulation board went with a reprimand for what’s been deemed professional misconduct.
Makofka had to agree not to contradict or dispute the information in the agreement for it to go forward.
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