Teacher suspended for professional misconduct

VERNON – A North Okanagan school teacher has been given a brief suspension for using volumes of alcohol as measurement examples in math class.

Michael Frederick Rybachuk, a teacher at A.L. Fortune Secondary in Enderby, will be suspended from teaching for 15 days starting Sept. 30, and is also required to attend a teaching workshop on communication skills and building positive relationships with students.

The professional misconduct, which Rybachuk has admitted to, occurred in his grade 9 and 10 math classes in 2010 and 2011. One incident involved a male student asking to go to the bathroom, Rybachuk refusing, then making the student sit on a stool near the classroom door. He also wrote the student’s phone number on the whiteboard. These actions made the student feel “humiliated and embarrassed by being singled out” according to a report on the matter.

Rybachuk is also being reprimanded for making comments to students about drinking and partying, and also using volumes of alcohol in math examples.

When a student returned from a vacation in Mexico, Rybachuk told her, in front of the class, that her “tan looks good.”

If Rybachuk does not take the workshop class within three months, his teaching certificate may be suspended.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infotelnews.ca, call (250)309-5230 or tweet @charhelston.