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Speaker 1: Hilda.

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Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a

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Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. There are

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Speaker 2: a number of employment dispute avenues in New Zealand, dependent

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Speaker 2: on what industry you're in. If you're one of the

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fourteen thousand registered teachers in this country,

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Speaker 2: you have to appear before something called the teacher's Disciplinary Tribunal.

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Speaker 2: Last year, there were five hundred and twenty four complaints,

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Speaker 2: mandatory reports and self reports received by the Teaching Council,

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Speaker 2: which is about zero point five percent of the total

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Speaker 2: number of teachers who held a practicing certificate. Now, while

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Speaker 2: it's more than twenty twenty three, which saw four hundred

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Speaker 2: and sixty two complaints, that accounted for just zero point

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Speaker 2: four percent. For the latest in our series looking at

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Speaker 2: how different tribunals work today on the Front Page, we're

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Speaker 2: joined again by Open Justice reporter Jeremy Wilkinson. So tell me, Jeremy,

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Speaker 2: what actually is the teacher's disciplinary Tribunal.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So, the Teacher's Disciplinary Tribunal is an arm of

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Speaker 3: the Teaching Council who will appoint a what's called a

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Speaker 3: professional conduct committee to charge or prosecute teachers before the

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Speaker 3: Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal, and that's for breaches of their professional obligations,

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Speaker 3: so that they're not breaches that are illegal in a

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Speaker 3: criminal context, but they are breaches of their code of ethics.

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Speaker 3: So that might be drug use or an inappropriate relationship

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Speaker 3: with a student, or in some cases they're kind of

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Speaker 3: taking a second bite out of the cherry. If, for example,

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Speaker 3: there's a teacher who's been caught drink driving and is

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Speaker 3: charged through the district court, then they might well, they

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Speaker 3: probably will end up before the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal as

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Speaker 3: well because it's a brief of their code of efforts.

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Speaker 2: So what kind of powers does the tribunal have.

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Speaker 3: They can cancel a teachers registration so that that person

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Speaker 3: can no longer teach in New Zealand. That really only

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Speaker 3: happens for the most serious of breaches, but we do

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Speaker 3: see it happen often. We will see a suspension or

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Speaker 3: a fine or conditions imposed on their practice, and that

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Speaker 3: those conditions might be they need to complete a course

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Speaker 3: or have supervision while they teach, or inform a prospective

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Speaker 3: employer that they've had a censure or a mark against

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Speaker 3: them at the tribunal.

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Speaker 2: What kind of cases have you seen.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen quite a few in my time. There's

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Speaker 3: a few. I think one that stands out is probably

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Speaker 3: Sealin Romiah. He was the Jamescott High School deputy principal

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Speaker 3: and he was caught sending explicit images and text messages

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Speaker 3: to several students and another staff member, and he actually

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Speaker 3: ended up in prison because one of those students was

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Speaker 3: under the age of sixteen.

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Speaker 2: Are all of the cases that the tribunal rules on

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Speaker 2: made public? What's the threshold for keeping a teacher's name

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Speaker 2: out of the public records? Say?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So my understanding was that all of the tribunal's

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Speaker 3: decisions are made public, but the teacher might get suppression. Basically,

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Speaker 3: the tribunal will maker an assessment similar to the courts,

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Speaker 3: about whether someone is entitled to suppression, and they'll take

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Speaker 3: him into account a range of things. But the decision

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Speaker 3: will be published, but whether that person's name is in

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Speaker 3: it is a different thing.

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Speaker 2: I saw a case recently that you reported on. It

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Speaker 2: was a seventeen year old girl who said she was

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Speaker 2: offered ten thousand dollars to drop a complaint against a

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Speaker 2: family friend who came into her room in the hope

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Speaker 2: that she would sleep with him. Now he wasn't her teacher,

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Speaker 2: but he was a registered teacher. She took her complaint

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Speaker 2: to the police, who then referred it to the Complaint's

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Speaker 2: Assessment Committee of the teacher's Council, which then later che

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Speaker 2: charge against him. So I guess this is an example

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Speaker 2: of the kind of case that maybe police wouldn't be

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Speaker 2: able to take to court and successfully convict, but the

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Speaker 2: council could. Is that right?

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Speaker 3: So the police will obviously charge someone where they can

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Speaker 3: where they have enough evidence too, but in some cases

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Speaker 3: the charge doesn't meet the threshold for a criminal charge.

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Speaker 3: So I suppose a good example of this is that

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Speaker 3: the age of consent in New Zealand is sixteen, So

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Speaker 3: it's not illegal for a teacher to engage in a

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Speaker 3: physical sexual relationship with a sixteen year old student, and

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Speaker 3: purely in the terms of it not being criminal, but

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Speaker 3: it is deeply and fundamentally ethically morally inappropriate in terms

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Speaker 3: of a professional conduct context, so not illegal. They wouldn't

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Speaker 3: be criminal criminally charged, but they would end up before

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Speaker 3: the teacher's disciplinary tribunal and probably lose their teaching registration

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Speaker 3: for it.

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Speaker 2: Also recently, there was an interesting case from christ Church

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Speaker 2: Boys High School where an ex teacher accused the headmaster

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Speaker 2: of leaving feces on her property on eight occasions in

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Speaker 2: retaliation for her raising concerns about him with the board

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Speaker 2: and police. Now, this case was going through the Employment

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Speaker 2: Relations Authority rather than the teaching council. But you then

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Speaker 2: have a teaching council case processed in the year to

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Speaker 2: June twenty twenty four where a Fielding daycare owner was

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Speaker 2: found guilty of serious misconduct for her behavior towards children

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Speaker 2: and staff members, including telling one staffer that she was

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Speaker 2: quote too fat to eat KFC. So what is the

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Speaker 2: threshold for a case to go to one tribunal over

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Speaker 2: another When it comes to teachers.

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Speaker 3: My understanding was that with the er, you needed to

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Speaker 3: lodge your complaint to yourself. It's not a quasi judicial

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Speaker 3: professional body that is prosecuting or laying charges against a

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Speaker 3: professional like a teacher, a doctor, or a lawyer. Instead,

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Speaker 3: you have a disgruntled employee who was taking their employer

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Speaker 3: proactively through the court. I suppose and effect the employee

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Speaker 3: becomes the prosecution. You know, they might hire a lawyer

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Speaker 3: or an employment advocate to take the case on their behalf,

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Speaker 3: whereas with the teacher's disciplinary tribunal, it is a professional

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Speaker 3: conduct committee of the Teaching Council who will lay charges

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Speaker 3: against a teacher for breaches of their conduct, and the

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Speaker 3: same way that the Medical Council as a professional conduct

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Speaker 3: committee or the New Zealand Law Society they have standards

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Speaker 3: committees who will lay charges against lawyers on behalf of

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Speaker 3: the law Society to take them to the lawyers and

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Speaker 3: conveyances disciplinary tribunal. So I suppose that's whether the difference

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Speaker 3: is one is person or complainant led the other side

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Speaker 3: is led by the professional body.

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Speaker 4: Nothing was done to prevent it. There were no talks

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Speaker 4: to students about specific things. It was just kind of

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Speaker 4: a don't connect with teachers on social media. There were

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Speaker 4: never any hard lines about it and it was really

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Speaker 4: up to the discretion of teachers at the end of

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Speaker 4: the day. I think the issue is with these apps

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Speaker 4: where you can erase all of the previous messages, you

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Speaker 4: can delete texts, you can erase cool history, snapchats disappear,

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Speaker 4: but having a platform where the it or the school

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Speaker 4: department is able to have access to those records.

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Speaker 2: I think that's really important. I stumbled upon your reporting

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Speaker 2: of teachers and the use of social media. Can you

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Speaker 2: tell me a little bit more about that?

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Speaker 3: So I went through the numbers last year and looked

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Speaker 3: at how many inappropriate relationship cases there were before the

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Speaker 3: tribunal and of those, how many of those was social

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Speaker 3: media a factor? And so the data showed that since

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Speaker 3: twenty ten, there have been fifty three cases of teachers

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Speaker 3: using social media to groom young people in their care,

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Speaker 3: which makes up about sixty percent of the eighty nine

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Speaker 3: cases involving that type of behavior in the last fourteen years.

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Speaker 2: Have you spoken with anyone who feels that we need

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Speaker 2: some kind of law around teachers student interactions updated given

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Speaker 2: how social media controls our lives these days.

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Speaker 3: I spoke to a few people for that article. One

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Speaker 3: of them was Professor Michael McCauley. He's form a judge

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Speaker 3: from the United Kingdom, a lecture at Victoria University School

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Speaker 3: of Government, and he focuses on ethics and integrity with

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Speaker 3: his own research. He said, be really simple and not

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Speaker 3: really that controversial to ban social media contact between teachers

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Speaker 3: and students, even in a digital age where students and

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Speaker 3: teachers do actually need to be able to email or

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Speaker 3: have some kind of communication for their assignments or their

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Speaker 3: homework or whatever it is. Has point, I suppose was

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Speaker 3: that you could just have one official point of contact

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Speaker 3: basically so that there can be a site so that

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Speaker 3: the messages can't be deleted. Like we saw with Seale

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Speaker 3: and Remia from James Cook High School. He asked three

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Speaker 3: students to download Signal, which is an encrypted messaging app,

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Speaker 3: and the messages are deleted after a certain period of time.

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Speaker 3: And that's I suppose a common theme that I saw

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Speaker 3: among that data, with those sixty percent of those eighty

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Speaker 3: nine cases was that it starts with emailing in the

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Speaker 3: pre Facebook era, and now these days it is primarily

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Speaker 3: texting or Facebook or Instagram, where these teachers are starting

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Speaker 3: a point of contact that begins quite innocently and then

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Speaker 3: progresses into something that is quite deeply inappropriate.

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Speaker 2: When we spoke last, we talked about the length of

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Speaker 2: time it takes to go through the human rights justice process.

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Speaker 2: What's the turnaround for these cases.

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Speaker 3: They're a good couple of years old generally by the

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Speaker 3: time I see them come through into the written decision phase.

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Speaker 3: So what happens is they held a hearing, and that

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Speaker 3: hearing is it was similar to a courtroom, except a

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Speaker 3: lot more informal, and then the tribunal panel members will

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Speaker 3: go away and write a decision and a penalty for

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Speaker 3: the teacher and it will often be given to the

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Speaker 3: parties while in advance of it being made.

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Speaker 1: Public schools could be more than twelve hundred teachers short

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Speaker 1: this year with demand outstripping supply. And it's not just here.

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Speaker 1: Data show it's a global issue, but in New Zealand

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Speaker 1: the Ministry is projecting it's twelve hundred and fifty teachers

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Speaker 1: short of what's needed.

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Speaker 5: Ali Mattia used to be adopted. Now she wants to

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Speaker 5: be here inspiring the next generation to pursue science.

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Speaker 6: Being able to teach academics or especially a subject that

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Speaker 6: I'm passionate about, but also being able to mentor students.

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Speaker 6: I feel like that just adds another layer of value

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Speaker 6: and impact to the students.

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Speaker 5: High schools are said to face a teacher's shortage through

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Speaker 5: to twenty twenty seven. According to the Education Ministries modeling.

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Speaker 5: We have very few qualified applicants who have the right

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Speaker 5: set of skills to be able to teach our school

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Speaker 5: for any position.

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Speaker 2: When you're ever reviewing these kind of cases, Jeremy, does

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Speaker 2: it ever feel like there should be more standards in

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Speaker 2: place for teachers or even just better checks and balances

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Speaker 2: around who actually becomes a teacher?

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Speaker 3: The Teachers Counsel I think they do a really good

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Speaker 3: job of vetting teachers before they enter the profession. And

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Speaker 3: the Teachers Council will be the first to say that

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Speaker 3: the people who end up before the tribunal are a

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Speaker 3: really small minority, and it is something that they stress

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Speaker 3: when we ask them questions about people who have been

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Speaker 3: suspended or had their registration canceled.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, I mean how many cases do we

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Speaker 2: see on average a year, say just off the top

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Speaker 2: of your head, because there's more than you know, there's

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Speaker 2: over one hundred thousand registered teachers or something like that

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Speaker 2: in New Zealand.

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Speaker 3: Hey, we might see on average around thirty thirty decisions

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Speaker 3: a year. To throw an number out, to just throw

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Speaker 3: a number out that seems about right, and we would

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Speaker 3: cover actually quite a small percentage of those. So there

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Speaker 3: are several decisions that have been uploaded this year, for example,

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Speaker 3: which involve teachers who have struck a child. But it

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Speaker 3: might be in quite a minor way, so they might

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Speaker 3: have pulled on their shirt, you know, to get them

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Speaker 3: to stop misbehaving or to direct them somewhere, and you're

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Speaker 3: not allowed to You're not allowed to do that in

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Speaker 3: New Zealand anymore. You're not allowed to lay your hands

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Speaker 3: on a child in that way. But does it make

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Speaker 3: media threshold for us to cover in most cases, No,

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Speaker 3: unless it's quite severe.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Jeremy no Worrith no Worth. That's

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Speaker 2: it for this episode of the Front Page. You can

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Speaker 2: read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at

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