An apology letter has been sent to parents after it emerged a teacher was allowed to work at their child’s secondary school despite getting into trouble at his previous school for using a pupil’s login details to view porn and ‘rape’ images.
In a letter to parents at Springbank Secondary College, where the teacher was found working this month, the South Australian Department of Education blamed an “administrative” oversight for allowing the teacher back into the classroom.
The teacher, a father of three, whose name has been withheld for legal reasons, joined the school in Pasendena in Adelaide’s south in August 2021.
The original scandal took place at Naracoorte High School in 2004 and the teacher was arrested again two years later for violating department guidelines on internet use. He kept his job, was given a reprimand and received counselling.
The child whose credentials were used was suspended and then bullied until he dropped out of school, before he even finished tenth grade.
The student is now a family man with a successful business and in 2011 he whistleblowed the lecturer after he requested documents from the faculty under the Government Information (Public Access) Act.
“It’s the course I was able to take, but I feel very sorry for the students who have to deal with the department. This was a process error by the department,” he said. The Adelaide Advertiser.
Nearly a decade after the scandal, the teacher was suspended on full pay in October 2013 and subsequently moved to a non-teaching role. He was working at Reynella East College as a Year 8 coordinator.
Parents of Springbank Secondary College students received the apology letter this month
A teacher who had previously viewed porn on a school computer and tried to hide it by using a student’s login details was allowed to continue teaching (stock)
When the teacher was suspended in 2013, the principals of Reynella East College and Aberfoyle Park High, where the man had also worked, sent letters of apology to parents.
The letter states that the police were not involved because they believed no laws had been broken.
The department offered the student a $30,000 settlement, which he described as hush money, after he was made to sign an agreement not to talk about the incident, which he regrets.
Former South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill later relinquished the confidentiality agreement after becoming aware of the matter.
The former student said he alerted the department in early July this year that the teacher was back in the classroom and received a letter back blaming a civil servant who has since left and the Teachers Registration Board, which had not deregistered the teacher.
He said the department offered him 10 counselling sessions and refused to disclose where else the teacher had worked, saying it was a “private employment matter”.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the South Australian Department of Education and the Teachers Registration Board for comment.
The teacher also worked at Aberfoyle Park High School in Adelaide