A 28-year-old student teacher in Abbotsford, B.C., has been charged with sex offences after an alleged inappropriate incident involving a young female student.
Corey Jordan Hamade turned himself into police Thursday, six days after a warrant was issued on separate charges of invitation to sexual touching and luring a child.
Abbotsford Police Const. Ian MacDonald told ctvbc.ca officers in the suburban community east of Vancouver received a complaint about the teacher on May 31. Hamade was a student teacher at Rick Hansen Secondary School between February and April 2010.
The police investigation found a suspect had contacted a student through social networking sites, including online instant messaging conversations on MSN, live video chats and webcam conversations.
MacDonald said other victims could be involved.
"He was in a position of authority and had access to a lot of kids," he said in a telephone interview Friday.
The alleged incidents happened outside of school hours and off school grounds, but MacDonald said the initial contact with the teen happened at school while the suspect was teaching.
The Abbotsford School District said it barred Hamade from the school on June 1, the day after officials learned of the allegations.
Officials have now banned him from all district schools and properties. He is also prohibited from communicating with any students.
In a letter sent home to parents, District Superintendent Julie MacRae said the suspect worked briefly as a volunteer coach for the school's football team but sent assurances he would not return.
"He is no longer providing any coaching or volunteer services in our schools," she wrote.
"I want to emphasize that the school -- and the students attending Rick Hansen Secondary -- are safe, and business will continue as usual at the school."
Social networking complicates teacher-student relationships
Social networking sites have made it easier than ever for relationships -- innocent or otherwise -- to form between students and teachers.
Richard Rosenberg, a professor emeritus of computer science at UBC, told CTV News that the growing ease of communication can harm both students and teachers.
"You can't just assume that as a teacher all your motives and all your actions are innocent," he said. "It may certainly be that, but they may also be seen as compromising, and I think as a teacher, that's just the worst situation you can get into."
In 2007, a principal in Harrison Hot Springs was put on leave after allegedly posting a nude photo of himself on his personal website. He was later reinstated after the school district ruled that it was simply an error in judgment.
Student-teacher interaction online is such a serious issues that the B.C. College of Teachers devotes entire workshops to it.
"Facebook calls the relationships between people ‘friends,' and we're not friends with our students," said Kit Krieger, registrar for the college.
But there's no province-wide policy banning Facebook friendships between students and teachers. The Vancouver school district is one of the only ones to clearly forbid it.
Abbotsford, on the other hand, doesn't have such a policy.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Norma Reid
