Lori-Lee Simard

An Alberta Teachers’ Association disciplinary committee has found former G.P. Vanier School teacher Lori-Lee Simard guilty of four charges of unprofessional conduct. The verdict was handed down March 17 following a four-day hearing in Edmonton, which came to a close last Monday when a three-member disciplinary committee rendered its decision. The committee found that the former teacher and 39-year-old mother of three, engaged in a romantic relationship with Riley, engaged in a sexual relationship with him and directed him to lie about his involvement with her. Riley was an 18-year-old Grade 12 student at Georges P. Vanier School in Donnelly when he had a secret affair with Simard, a married woman twice his age who taught French and drama at the school. Riley took his own life April 9, 2006. The night before, he had sent a suggestive text message to Simard. Her husband discovered it, got angry and called Riley back to confront him. Riley confided in his father he had done “a stupid thing” by sending the message to Simard when he meant to send it to a girl named Vicky. The committee, which also accepted Simard’s guilty plea to a charge that she engaged in an inappropriate teacher-student relationship with Riley, also ruled that she failed to maintain the honour and dignity of the teaching profession. She was found not guilty of one other charge, that she had Riley stay overnight at her home without parental permission. The committee will recommend Education Minister Dave Hancock cancel Simard’s teaching certificate, which would make her ineligible to teach anywhere in Canada. Robert Bisson, the ATA’s co-ordinator of member services, told reporters, “In this particular case, the only penalty that could be arrived at was one of a recommendation to cancel the certificate and to declare the individual ineligible for membership.” He said the Simard case was rare, in that it was investigated by the ATA itself and came to a hearing. There have only been one or two such cases in the past five years, he said. Simard wasn’t at the hearing Monday, however, her lawyer, Brad Minuk was. He said his client’s career has been tainted and destroyed, adding that it will be up to her to decide whether or not to appeal the decision. Regardless of what happened at the hearing, he said this was one case which would not have a favourable outcome. “Whether you win this case, the outcome is the same. There is still somebody who has passed away, and the parties are all affected by it.” And nobody would agree more than Riley’s mother, Vivian Aubin. “The best possible outcome would have been that I had my son by my side,” Vivian Aubin said Monday. “When you lose a child, you lose part of yourself,” Aubin told reporters outside the hearing room. “There is no way you can make it up or change it... that’s why I felt so strongly to make sure it doesn’t happen to somebody else.” Last Monday’s decision followed four days of testimony (March 10 to 14) from 20 witnesses. The committee members were told about a clandestine affair conducted through e-mails, text messages, phone calls and handwritten notes. The pair saw each other in school and outside of school. They phoned each other late at night. Witnesses testified they saw Simard and Riley kissing, and that at a public event Simard stuck her tongue in his ear. The committee heard evidence that Simard and the student planned a trip to Edmonton together in March 2006. Riley later told three people he had “great sex” in Edmonton. During her closing remarks prosecuting officer Konni DeGoeij said “the evidence that has been brought before you over the past four days has been the culmination of what can only be described as a human tragedy.” “Riley Aubin had secrets,” DeGoeij said, including “one he did not share directly with his friends or his parents, but one which the testimony you heard and the evidence provided has made clear – the secret he was told by Madame Simard not to disclose, the secret to which he became the ultimate victim: the romantic and sexual relationship with Lori Simard.” Vivian Aubin, who reported her suspicions about the relationship to school authorities after Riley’s death, said the hearing did not bring her any sense of closure. She hopes others will learn from her family’s painful experience, especially those who think small towns are safer than cities for their children. “In small towns we take it for granted that everybody is going to watch out for each other. We know the teachers, and when you look around, it happens in small towns because of that very reason. People think that everybody knows everybody and trusts everybody.” Aubin said she would have been more suspicious of the closeness between Riley and the teacher if school officials had told her Riley was spending time in Simard’s classes without being enrolled in them. “She was very charismatic. She had me fooled. I would never have thought that she would go to that length with a child.” She will remember her son as a cheerful individual who went out of his way to brighten everyone’s day, she said. “He was just a very, very thoughtful kid, and he had a big heart, and he went out to people, and unfortunately for that he was taken advantage of.”