BC teacher suspended for allowing students to hit each other with pool noodles

A British Columbia teacher has been suspended for allowing his students to hit each other with pool noodles.

Russell Stephen Bodnar exposed his students to “physical harm” and “created an unsafe environment,” the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation said in a ruling released this week.

The incident occurred on March 6, 2023 at a secondary school operated by School District 70 on Vancouver Island.

Bodnar was teaching a Grade 9 physical and health education class, the Commissioner’s report explains.

It says he allowed some students to play a game of hockey using pool noodles instead of hockey sticks.

The report explains he “encouraged” them to hit each other with the noodles, though he warned them against hitting "too hard" or targeting anyone's head.

“During this activity, Bodnar was looking on and encouraging the students by saying things like ‘Beat him! Get him! You can get him!’ and encouraging students being hit to ‘fight back’ with their pool noodle,” the Commissioner’s report states.

Students were also hitting one another above the neck, according to the Commissioner, with some of the kids later describing the interactions as “aggressive.”

One of the participants in the game – referred to as “Student A” in the report – was wearing glasses.

Student A “was hit in the face repeatedly with a pool noodle,” the report says, breaking the student’s glasses and bruising the student’s face.

Bodnar said the student had been hit “pretty hard,” but did not follow up on the incident by filing a report or telling the child’s parents what had happened to the glasses.

Later on the same day, Bodnar was handed a disciplinary letter by his school district and told he would be suspended without pay for five days.

According to the Commissioner, Bodnar had been disciplined by the district in the past, including for demonstrating an athletic technique on a student and for encouraging a Grade 8 class to “twerk.”

In its own disciplinary action, the Commissioner said the teacher had committed professional misconduct and ordered him to complete a course on boundaries.

He was also given another three days’ suspension.