B.C. teacher who kissed student soon after graduation banned for 10 years

Close up of student lockers in high school corridor. (File photo)

A former B.C. teacher who admitted to exchanging inappropriate emails with a student and kissing them after they graduated has been banned from the profession for 10 years, according to the provincial regulator.

Robert Ian Collett was fired from the independent school he taught at in December 2023, and in May 2024 signed an undertaking not to teach in any role requiring a Ministry of Education certificate. His teaching certificate was cancelled in November 2025 for non-payment of fees.

The new ban on re-applying for a certificate stems from a June consent resolution agreement with the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, in which Collett admitted to the misconduct.

According to the agreement, Collett began exchanging emails related to school matters with a student at the start of their Grade 12 year. It later escalated to messages including “romantic and intimate language.”

After the student graduated, their emails included “sexual content.”

Within a month after graduation, the student and Collett “met at a restaurant, where they discussed personal matters, and at a park, where he hugged and kissed (the student),” the document reads.

After that meeting, the commissioner notes the student emailed Collett and asked him not to contact them again. A few days later, the teacher sent them a “good-bye poem.”

“Collett demonstrated a serious failure to maintain appropriate boundaries,” the commissioner wrote. “Collett engaged in conduct that had the potential to compromise (the student’s) emotional safety and well-being.”