A B.C. teacher will not be recertified for at least eight years after connecting with a student on the Grindr dating app and engaging in “sexualized physical contact” with them, says the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation.
According to a consent agreement posted online on Tuesday, Adam Richard Macdonald was a teacher at an unnamed B.C. school district when he met a student in January 2016 while on a two-day field trip.
The student, who was not named in the agreement and referred to as “Student A,” is a member of a local Indigenous community and was in Grade 11 when on the field trip.
Around five months later, the student and Macdonald connected on Grindr — with the 17-year-old student claiming to be 18 in order to access the app, the commissioner found.
“Macdonald was unaware of the fact that Student A was a District student during this period. They then ceased communication for several months until the [2016-17] school year,” the consent agreement reads.
At that point, the teacher and student reconnected on Grindr and realized they had met on the field trip a few months prior, according to the agreement.
“Student A and Macdonald switched to messaging via Instagram. They also exchanged messages by regular text messaging after Macdonald gave Student A his telephone number,” the agreement reads.
The commissioner then found that, after the student had graduated from high school, they met up with Macdonald at his home and engaged in “sexualized physical contact.”
“Over the course of the next year, Student A and Macdonald continued to periodically engage in physical contact, including kissing, cuddling and, on at least one occasion, oral sex,” the agreement reads.
Macdonald told the student that the district couldn’t say anything about their relationship “as they were at different District schools,” according to the agreement.
In February 2024, Macdonald resigned from the district and signed an undertaking not to practice.
The district issued a letter in 2016 that directed him to maintain professional boundaries with students and “refrain from communicating with students about his own personal sexual experience.”
Now, he has agreed to have his teaching certificate cancelled and he will not apply for recertification for eight years.
“Macdonald engaged in inappropriate physical contact of a sexual nature with a person he knew had recently graduated from a District school,” the commissioner found.
“Macdonald’s behaviour was a serious breach of his position of power and trust as a teacher.”
