A former Vancouver Island high school teacher has had his teaching licence nullified for 15 years after admitting to sexting with three students.
The B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation publicly released the consent resolution agreement involving the former Nanaimo-Ladysmith teacher Tuesday, Aug. 1.
According to the agreement, Neil Stewart Holmes contacted a student via Facebook Messenger after they graduated in 2014 and exchanged messages and photographs of a sexual nature. The student knew Holmes as a substitute teacher.
“At one point, Holmes sent [the student] a photograph of his classroom, indicating that this was a place where he would like to have sex with [the student],” the document noted.
In another incident, a student found Holmes on a dating app and contacted him before the end of the 2014-15 school year. Holmes knew the student attended a Nanaimo-Ladysmith school and the two began communicating via text messages. Included in the correspondence were two sexually explicit images of Holmes. In 2016, the student posted a warning to social media, naming Holmes, and he told the student to take down the post or he would contact the police.
In the third incident, Holmes sent texts, including some with “a sexual nature” to an 18-year-old who had graduated the previous year. The student knew Holmes through school sports and as a substitute teacher.
Holmes was placed on paid leave by Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district for four and a half months in the winter and spring of 2021, and on unpaid leave after that. He resigned in January 2022.
Holmes admitted to the facts in the agreement and admitted his actions were improper. The teacher regulation branch found he “failed to maintain teacher-student boundaries by engaging in inappropriate communication of a sexual nature with current and former students.”
The suspension began last month.
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karl.yu@nanaimobulletin.com
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