Former teacher had ‘inappropriate’ relationships with more than one student

A former teacher in Grenfell who pleaded guilty last year to sexual assaulting one teenage boy had an inappropriate relationship with another teen boy before that, according to the teachers’ disciplinary committee.

Last spring, Tori Peterson pleaded guilty to sexual assault in connection to a relationship with a 15-year-old boy. A second charge of sexual interference was stayed. She was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Once the legal proceedings were done, the professional proceedings began. In early January, the decision came down from the disciplinary committee for the Saskatchewan Professional Teachers Regulatory Board (SPTRB).

In that decision, the board explained that Peterson had actually been fired from her teaching position for a relationship with a 14-year-old boy — not the boy the criminal charges related to.

The report said the school division became aware in late November of 2021 that Peterson had “shared inappropriate social media chats with a 14-year-old male student.”

The subsequent investigation spoke to witnesses and looked at images from Peterson’s Snapchat account.

“In its report, the investigator concluded that the images included ones of a sexual nature involving Ms. Peterson and captions that showed the development of an inappropriate relationship between Ms. Peterson and a student,” read the disciplinary report.

Peterson’s employment was terminated within days.

It was a few months later, in early January 2022, that police got a complaint about Peterson’s interactions with a different minor.

“The minor was not the same student involved in the Snapchat exchanges,” explained the report.

In February, Peterson was charged. At her sentencing hearing, according to the disciplinary report, Peterson had lost her job and relationship.

“When things fell apart, she fell apart,” her defence lawyer said. “I think to put it in her own words in her statement, she was ‘out of her mind,’ was the words that she used in her statement to the police – at this time.”

Though the orders around her sentence precluded her being able to teach anyone under 16 for five years, the SPTRB cancelled Peterson’s teaching certificate.