Former Scotch College teacher Georgina Rachelle facing another ban after court appeal

A former Scotch College and Star of the Sea teacher allowed to return to the classroom after threatening to kill her sister is facing another ban following a successful appeal by the education regulator.

Georgina Rachelle was a former teacher at Melbourne’s elite Scotch College.

A former Scotch College and Star of the Sea teacher cleared to teach after threatening to kill her sister is facing another ban following a successful appeal by the education regulator.

The Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) fought a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to allow Melbourne woman Georgina Rachelle to teach again.

Ms Rachelle was banned from teaching in 2019 after the VIT became aware she had faced criminal charges in two countries spanning more than 15 years, including death threats and drink driving.

She appealed the decision in the AAT, arguing the charges, which were due to a fallout with her sister after she slept with her husband, did not make her unfit to teach.

AAT deputy president Peter Britten-Jones ruled in 2023 that Ms Rachelle’s “character, reputation and conduct are such that she should be allowed to teach”.

Almost a year on, the VIT has appealed this decision on three grounds, arguing that this ruling was “illogical, irrational and otherwise not open to the evidence”.

AAT Deputy President Justice Timothy McEvoy granted the second appeal by the VIT.

Ms Rachelle was registered to teach in Victoria in 2011, before relocating to New Zealand in May 2013, where the Teaching Council of New Zealand approved her application to teach in the country two years later.

But that registration was cancelled in July 2019 after she failed to disclose she was twice convicted of driving with excess blood alcohol during a mandatory police check.

The following month, Ms Rachelle applied to have her Victorian teaching registration renewed but did not disclose her two criminal convictions or that her New Zealand registration had been cancelled.

Ms Rachelle returned to Australia in April 2021, when she was charged with three counts of making threats to kill and one count of using a carriage service to menace.

She pleaded guilty and was convicted and fined, but the charges were dismissed on appeal in 2021.

In November that year, Ms Rachelle was also charged with six further offences, including several counts of contravening a family violence intervention order, one count of persistent contravention of a family violence order and using a carriage service to harass.

Ms Rachelle was found guilty without conviction of persistent contravention of a family violence intervention order, while the remaining charges were withdrawn.