Melbourne’s most disgraced teachers: Shane Osmond, Yukihiro Nagashima
From allowing students to play knife games in class to sending hundreds of inappropriate messages on social media, these are the Melbourne teachers that broke their students’ trust and paid the price.
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A teacher who sent a student a “soulmate” necklace is among the Melbourne educators who have faced disciplinary action for their unacceptable behaviour.
The Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) is responsible for investigating competence and fitness to teach and, if necessary, exercising disciplinary functions relating to teacher conduct.
According to the VIT annual report, in 2018/19, 19 teachers were suspended because they posed an unacceptable risk of harm to children; seven were suspended after being charged with a sexual offence; and 10 were disqualified from teaching after being convicted or found guilty of a sexual offence.
The Register of Disciplinary Action (RoDA) lists disciplinary action taken against teachers by the Institute (and formerly by the Registered Schools Board).
Here are some of the teachers who have faced disciplinary action over the years.
SHANE OSMOND
Osmond flooded his 16-year-old student with sexual Facebook messages and gave him a “soulmate” necklace he had been saving for “the one”.
Osmond was found guilty of serious misconduct in 2018 by a panel sitting at the Victorian Institute of Teaching.
The 55-year-old faced the maximum penalty imposed by the VIT after his behaviour towards the student escalated “to the point of obsession”, including sending 1650 Facebook messages — many sexual in nature — telling how much he cared for him, even naming his penis.
In its findings the panel found Osmond failed to maintain a professional relationship with the student, including by holding conversations of a personal nature and using sexual innuendo with the student.
Osmond’s teaching registration was cancelled and the panel imposed a period of disqualification of five years.
KEITH WALTER CURRIE
An independent panel hearing heard Currie was alleged to have engaged in a prolonged and inappropriate relationship with a student at a school he taught at in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
After considering all the evidence and submissions in the matter, the panel found Currie guilty of serious misconduct in 2018, but determined that he remain as a registered teacher.
YUKIHIRO NAGASHIMA
Nagashima’s teaching registration was suspended for six months, from August 21, 2017 to February 21 2018, after he was found to have committed serious misconduct by having inappropriate social media contact with a student.
Nagashima sent a flurry of inappropriate messages to a teenage student at his college’s sister school in Japan, telling the student he was “horny” and wanted to sleep with her.
He denied having asked the 17-year-old to send graphic images of herself, but the Victorian Institute of Institute substantiated those claims.
The teaching watchdog found the former Beaconhills College teacher “compromised and violated his professional relationship”.
JACK DANIEL JOHNSON
Johnson was found guilty of serious misconduct at a 2017 Victorian Institute of Teaching formal hearing, with his teaching registration suspended for 18 months.
According to the panel’s findings, Johnson accepted that he had formed an inappropriate relationship with a student by communicating with her on Facebook and Snapchat and had sent inappropriate messages and emails, including a photograph of him wearing a towel.
He also asked the student to send him photographs; suggested to the student to keep their messages a secret; suggested that he would sneak out and see her on a school camp and used inappropriate references, calling her a “spunk’ and his favourite.
GEORGE STEELE
Steele’s teaching registration was cancelled, effective from March 11 2015, after a Victorian Institute of Teaching panel found him guilty of serious incompetence and not fit to teach.
The Panel also found that he engaged in misconduct.
The Institute alleges that while employed as a registered teacher, Steele allowed students to play a knife game in class where they used a fork to stab between their fingers as quickly as possible; instructed a student to carry a bowl of hot liquid with the apron she was wearing because the kitchen assistant had not provided oven mittens; and pulled his baseball cap down covering his face and did not supervise students on a train trip for a Year 12 Food Technology excursion.
It was also alleged that Steele allowed students in his Year 12 Food Technology class to watch videos of Border Security and on a number of occasions in 2013, he indicated to female students in his classes that they were required to clean up after the male students and do
their dishes.
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