Vancouver College teacher reprimanded after making legal threat against student
Credit to Author: David Carrigg| Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2019 22:33:16 +0000
A former Vancouver College teacher and university football star has been reprimanded after threatening to sue a student.
According to the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, Dante Giorgio Bertuzzi Luciani was working at Vancouver College in January, when a Grade 11/12 student made a complaint to the commissioner “about the assessment method used by Luciani in the class.”
“In early April 2019, after Luciani was advised of the complaint, he had an ‘adult-to-adult’ conversation with the student in which he told the student that the student had ‘gone too far’ and that if the complaint negatively impacted Luciani’s employment, he would take legal action against the student,” the commissioner’s report states.
Then, on April 5, Luciani called the student’s mother and told her that if the complaint impacted him professionally, he would take legal action against the student.
“He also told the student’s mother that the student has wasted everyone’s time and that the student needed, ‘To get everyone out of this pickle now.’ ”
On July 22, commissioner Howard Kushner assessed the facts, and after Luciani agreed that he had made the legal threats, ruled the teacher would be given a reprimand. Kushner ruled that Luciani had put his own interests before the student’s.
Luciani, who has held a B.C. teacher’s licence since 2017, is known for his role as a wide receiver in the 2005 Vanier Cup in which he helped the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks secure victory.
He was drafted by the Edmonton Eskimos in 2008 and played on the practice roster with the Montreal Alouettes and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
Luciani is no longer working at Vancouver College and signed the consent resolution agreement from Oakville, Ont.