Langley teacher suspended for ‘innappropriate physical contact’ with students
Posted October 31, 2020 12:11 pm.
Last Updated October 31, 2020 12:16 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — A Langley teacher has been suspended for “inappropriate physical contact” with two students on separate occasions.
Roxann Desiree Rojas had been teaching a Grade 3 class during the 2018-19 school year, according to the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, when the incidents involving two children happened.
The commissioner found she had failed to create a safe learning environment and had “inappropriate physical contact” with students more than once after she was already reminded not to.
In September 2018 during a “meet the teacher night,” Rojas grabbed an eight-year-old student by the arm and pulled their ear to face her after they answered “I don’t know” to a question she had asked. At a different time, during school hours, she shook the same student until they fell out of their chair to “show [the student] what could happen as a result” of sitting too close to the edge of the seat.
The next incident happened a month later when a seven-year-old child in Rojas’ class was “being non-compliant”. Rojas “angrily grabbed” the student by their arms in a “threatening manner,” dragging them into the hallway while they screamed and cried for her to stop. She pushed the child back into the classroom while the student “lay on the ground in the fetal position, crying, and asking Rojas to stop,” according to the commissioner.
Rojas had been yelling at the child loudly enough she could be heard in a nearby staff room. The student was left with red marks on their arm.
The principal had told Rojas to stay away from the seven-year-old student immediately after.
“When [the student] went to the classroom to eat lunch, Rojas ignored the principal’s direction and spoke with [them],” according to the commissioner.
Rojas told the child they needed to apologize and reminded them they “tended to scatch their arms,” which she also later told the school’s vice principal to explain the red marks.
The district issued a letter of discipline and suspended her for four months without pay a year later. She served it between December 2019 and March 2020.
She had previously been issued a letter of direction in June of 2010, reminding her teachers “cannot put their hands on students in a manner that a reasonable person would consider inappropriate.” She was also told it is an expectation of teachers to “exercise an appropriate duty of care towards students that address their physical and emotional safety needs,” according to the commissioner.
When the commissioner reviewed the incidents, Rojas was given another two-week suspension by the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation after it reviewed the incidents. She is serving that from Oct. 25 to Nov. 7.
