A Peace River teacher was suspended without pay after he left a box of carving knives unattended in his classroom, and in a separate incident allowed students to run around a park alone during a P.E. class.
According the B.C. Teacher Regulation Branch, Richard Andy George Roderick Payne left an unsecured box of 20 carving knives in his classroom on May 3, 2017.
His students had unlimited access to the knives for about two hours until the principal and another teacher found them and took them out of the room.
When Payne couldn鈥檛 find the knives, he didn鈥檛 report it to the school.
A few days later, on May 9, he allowed his physical education class to go on a run in a public park with no supervision.
The kids ran for anywhere from seven minutes to half an hour while Payne waited on a bench back at the school for his students to return.
When questioned about it by officials with the Peace River South School District, Payne said he hadn鈥檛 supervised a run for years.
As a result of both infractions, the district has issued him a letter of discipline, suspended him for four days without pay, and ordered him to take a course on creating a positive learning environment.
Payne appears to still have his teacher鈥檚 certificate, even though he has been disciplined many times before.
In March 2011, he was reprimanded after admitting he pulled a student from his chair and hit him in the arm.
In October of the same year, he was again reprimanded following allegations that he鈥檇 broken a metre stick over a student鈥檚 back.
In 2012, Payne was issued a letter of discipline after allegations of inappropriate physical contact with students.
In 2014, Payne was suspended for one day after allegations of physical contact with a student.
A BC Teacher Regulation Branch magazine said that the 2014 offence involved grabbing female Grade 8 student鈥檚 face and blowing on her nose, making her 鈥渧ery uncomfortable.鈥�
Some of the previous offences included 鈥渏oking around, poking or mock tasering students and hugging a student.鈥�
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