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New complaints against teachers investigated by the Teachers Council show that technology is getting educators into trouble - with three of the five cases being triggered by inappropriate text messages and emails between teachers and students.
One teacher was struck off, and two were censured for serious misconduct but were allowed to keep their registration with no conditions imposed, following email or text contact with students.
In previous years, such cases were rare, but experts said the increased use of technology at schools made it easier for relationships to cross the line.
Most schools frowned upon teachers text-messaging students, but it was common for students to email assignments in or to ask questions of teachers online.
One solution - deemed "very sensible" by the teachers' watchdog body, the Disciplinary Tribunal - was that schools introduced open email systems, where no teacher could receive or send private messages.
That idea was pitched by a teacher who now has to work under strict conditions after the tribunal found he had sent inappropriate emails to a 17-year-old student who had a crush on him. Another teacher censured by the tribunal had text-messaged girls as young as 11, and he showed a 12-year-old girl a sexually explicit email between his wife and another man. One intermediate school teacher, understood to be from Marlborough, was struck off for sending a "barrage" of text messages to two girls aged about 12.
Police produced 40 pages of Telecom records that showed the teacher had sent texts late at night and early in the morning. Some were affectionate; in others, he swore or talked about his problems: "O shit. Tht sucks. So i wnt c u 2mro on the day i most nd u. bt u my friend so it no bigi. I bn waitin al day 2talk 2u. U kno 2day i told u i luh, i mean it."
The tribunal said in that decision that it wanted to be "absolutely clear that relationships of this sort - based on any form of communication, including texting - are unacceptable".
Five of the 21 decisions made by the tribunal since it was established in 2005 had involved inappropriate texts or emails. Another five involved teachers using school computers to access pornography.
But Teachers Council chairwoman Kathy Smith said that whether ethics were breached via text, email or in person was not really the issue - the council expected high standards of all teachers. "It's the things that they should be thinking about before they use the medium... You should have those imbued in you, no matter what medium you're using to connect with your students.
"I think the question always has to be about what's appropriate behaviour, really, what's the appropriate values... They have a role in promoting the physical, emotional and social wellbeing of learners, so they should always be thinking about that in their relationships with learners."
Smith thought the spike in the number of technology-related cases was a coincidence.
But Arthur Graves, chairman of the Secondary Principals' Council, said that the rise of text messages and emails had made teacher-student boundaries "a little easier to cross".
"You've raised an issue that we actually need to talk about.
"There's a very hard-to-define boundary, but one doesn't cross that line between being a teacher and being a close personal friend. It's the content of the message that counts, not the mode of the message."
Graves was interested in the open email system idea but said policies should be talked about by individual schools and communities.
"On a personal level, I have no problem with that... But to actually try and control information in a digital age, in the information era, may well be a futile exercise."
Martin Cocker, executive director of internet watchdog group NetSafe, agreed. "[The suggested system] certainly is a possibility, and it would certainly cover the legitimate channels of communication set up by the school, but of course it's very easy to set up multiple communication channels, so it wouldn't guarantee anything. And I can't imagine how you would have a text monitoring system; that would be nearly impossible."
He confirmed that NetSafe had dealt with a small number of cases where teachers had sent students inappropriate emails, and he said it was not surprising that those relationships were going online.
"[Technology] enables relationships that need to be kept under the radar to be carried out, because you just don't know what people are doing when they're sitting at the computer or texting into a phone."
The dangerous thing about emails was interpretation, Cocker said.
"It's a bit of a shame, in a way, because technology creates all sorts of positive opportunities for teachers and students to interact, inside and out of the classroom."
PPTA head Robin Duff said: "While email and text has the potential to be more invasive because the scale and speed of the technology is much greater, if teachers follow appropriate guidelines, it shouldn't be difficult to keep at a professional level."
He provided a copy of the union's email policy, which said members should be "reasonable and responsible" and abide by all school policies when using email.
An open system would be "compliance gone mad", Duff said.
"It's also a total overkill to a couple of cases among 50,000 or so teachers...
"You can't just keep expecting schools to do more and more of this kind of surveillance without it taking their focus away from the core focus on teaching and learning."
Barrage of text
An intermediate school teacher befriended two of his students - girls aged about 12 at the time - and sent them a "barrage" of text messages during the last two terms of 2005. Police obtained 40 pages of Telecom records showing that he had messaged the girls after midnight and as early as 6am.
Some referred to his own emotional issues: "I fl fat. I ate 2much. I fl ugly. Tht answer the question?". He sent abusive texts about other teachers and discussed death, family issues and one of the girl's attempts at self-harm. Sometimes he swore or was affectionate.
This text was sent on September 14, the day before the anniversary of his daughter's death.
"O shit. Tht sucks. So i wnt c u 2mro on the day i most nd u. bt u my friend so it no bigi. I bn waitin al day 2talk 2u. U kno 2day i told u i luh, i mean it." The teacher told the tribunal he quit work that day and voluntarily deregistered himself. He had been a teacher for 17 years.
He said he had initially been concerned for one of the girl's wellbeing, but her problems "became inextricably linked with the personal issues he was then facing, and he began to unburden his troubles on her".
He had lost a sister, and another sister had been diagnosed with cancer. The tribunal said his actions were "unquestionably serious misconduct" and he was deregistered and censured.
Emails canned
A 42-year-old teacher blamed his IT background, "where he said that email communications were rather loose", for his inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old student.
The computer science teacher realised the girl had a crush on him about May 2005. He told the tribunal she had low self-esteem, so he "tried to look like [he] was interested in her... I was hoping that in time ... the crush would pass". From his hotmail address, he sent emails, including "sexual innuendoes, sexual jokes and the suggestion of continuing contact". He said he used "adult to adult banter" because he did not know how else to handle the situation. When he realised the emails were inappropriate, he talked to the girl, who said she was OK and had moved on.
However, one of her friends saw the emails. The tribunal said the school was "woefully inadequate" in the support it gave the teacher, who had been made head of department while provisionally registered, in his first year on the job. Although his behaviour clearly constituted serious misconduct, the tribunal said, he was "under a great deal of stress", and his suggestion that schools adopt open email systems was "very sensible".
He was censured but allowed to continue teaching.
Girls given email
This email, sent between a teacher's wife and her lover, ended up in the hands of two girls, aged 12 and 13: "Thought about u and me waking up together and the kids were still asleep, well rather I was awake and soon made u awake and I slowly kissed down your body until you were very receptive... Anyway before I make a mess..."
The teacher, in his early 30s, also sent text messages to two students - aged 11 and 12 - when he discovered his wife's affair.
He said the texts: "Hey... do you ever text someone you don't know" and "hey... are you still talking to me" were sent out to everyone in his contact list at a time when he was "particularly lonely".
He said students probably added the numbers while his phone was left on his desk in the classroom, and he deleted the numbers after a parent mentioned the text to a colleague.
And the emails?
He said he printed them out to show his mother, who also worked at the school. But during a lunch break, a Year 8 student came in to talk to him about the break-up, and he tapped the pile of print-outs and said "That's why".
She took the emails with her, and he did not ask for them back.
The tribunal said they were "by no means convinced" by that explanation but decided not to cancel the teacher's registration - instead, he was censured.
The 'nice' man
He is in his 70s, on a pension and hasn't taught for years, but a Wellington art teacher's past has caught up with him - he was convicted last year of indecently assaulting a student more than 20 years ago.
He was sentenced to 300 hours of community work, and the man's solicitor also mentioned there were "further matters pending before the courts".
The police summary of facts said the man had assaulted a 15-year-old girl between October 1982 and October 1983, at the Catholic co-ed secondary school where he worked for more than 20 years.
The girl was working in the art room at lunchtimes and after school to finish a portfolio.
He invited her into his office, sat her down, then pushed his right hand into her blouse and under her bra.
She jumped up and said "No", and reminded the teacher he was a nice man and married.
But later she came back and said she wanted a relationship with him.
The tribunal said they could not take any continued relationship between the pair into account.
The teacher was deregistered and censured for serious misconduct.
