A Victoria-area high school teacher has been handed a three-day suspension for making repeated, unwelcome contact with students and talking about what he finds attractive in a woman during class.
Shadrick Peter Cain was reported to the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation by the Greater Victoria school district in September 2023.
One Grade 10 student said Cain made “unnecessary and unwelcome physical contact” on several occasions, including touching the student’s shoulder and leaning over the student in the library such that his face was within inches of the student’s.
The next school year, Cain gave the student several “side hugs,” once rubbing the student’s upper arm while doing so. The student “reported feeling extremely uncomfortable as a result of Cain’s conduct.”
Another student similarly said Cain touched the student’s waist while passing by in the hall. When the student was talking with other teachers, Cain put his arm around the student and asked, “Are they bothering you?”
While in the library, Cain gave the student another side hug and said: “I am proud of you for being in class more often.” That student also reported feeling “extremely uncomfortable” with Cain’s behaviour.
In June 2023, the district suspended Cain for five days without pay and ordered him to “cease and desist physically touching or side-hugging students,” to treat students more professionally and to show respect for their dignity.
At the start of the following school year, Cain used an offensive slur for gay people while discussing homophobia, citing the slur as something that could get a student in trouble.
He then said: “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m attracted to silky long hair, short women and big butts,” while making a rounding motion with his hands.
He went on: “You could be walking down the street, and you see an attractive person from behind, and it turns out it’s not a woman, but your friend Bill … he’s really hot but that doesn’t make me gay.”
He also encouraged students to ask for the phone numbers of other students they were interested in, because “you never know.”
Three students said the comments made them so uncomfortable that they withdrew from Cain’s class.
Cain had earlier been issued a letter of discipline for similar behaviour, said the commissioner in a consent resolution agreement posted online Tuesday. Cain admitted his actions constituted professional misconduct and accepted the suspension. He must also take a course on reinforcing respectful professional boundaries.
Cain’s punishment was deemed appropriate because he failed to create a positive classroom environment, acted inappropriately and “caused emotional distress to a student with his sexualized conduct.”
In another commissioner’s agreement also posted online Tuesday, Christopher Jay Leveille was suspended three weeks for carrying a handmade model of a vintage rifle into his Vancouver secondary school in December 2023.
A student who saw the model gun called 911, police attended, and the high school and two others in the area were locked down while officers searched for the man with the rifle. Local transit was also affected.
The commissioner said “Leveille created a situation which he should have known could create fear and panic.”
Leveille retired from the Vancouver school district last year.
