KEY POINTS:
A senior teacher who punched a 16-year-old student about eight times has been allowed to continue teaching.
A just-released Teachers Council's disciplinary tribunal decision formally censured the teacher for serious misconduct and fined him $1000 plus $3000 costs to the council's complaints assessment committee.
Details identifying the school, the teacher and the student were not made public.
The altercation happened in October 2006. The decision said the unusually lengthy delay in the tribunal hearing the case included dealing with a series of applications by the student's "understandably agitated" father, who unsuccessfully asked for the case to be heard in public.
The decision says that at the time the Year 12 student had to report daily to the teacher - then the Year 12 dean and assistant head of the school's social sciences department.
The student became angry during a discussion and threatened the teacher by saying "I am going to shit on your lawn".
That afternoon, he sat across the road from the teacher's house from about 4.15pm.
When the teacher arrived home about an hour later, he went inside to check that his children were safe, then approached the student and told him to get away from his home and family.
The tribunal report says a verbal altercation followed, then the teacher grabbed the teenager and punched him about eight times before pushing him away. A neighbour phoned police and an ambulance.
The decision said the teacher appeared in court on an assault charge and was given diversion on condition of pleading guilty, apologising and attending an anger management course.
The teacher's lawyer, Nicole Carter, told the tribunal the man was a "committed and passionate" teacher and it was the first time he was the subject of a complaint.
He was still employed by the school, but had been removed as the Year 12 dean and assistant head the social sciences department resulting in a loss of income.
While Ms Carter said there was a degree of provocation by the student, the tribunal said it "consisted of nothing more than a rather infantile schoolboy threat".
"In this tribunal's view the respondent's response was not only inappropriate it was out of all proportion to the situation and is to be condemned."
