Canadian Teacher Suspended for Playing Anti-Gay Prank

A teacher in Canada is defending himself after playing an anti-gay prank on one of his students last year where he put a sticker that reads "I'm gay" on the male student's back, CBC News reports.

Daniel Mark Ogloff, a metal fabrication and machining teacher at Aldergrove Community Secondary School in Langley, British Columbia, says it was just horseplay when he put the note on the grade 11 student's back on Sept. 24, 2013.

Ogloff wrote "I'm gay" on a piece of masking tape and stuck it on the back of a male student's jacket. He let other students take pictures and let the boy leave class, never telling him about the prank. When the teacher defended himself to school officials, he said the incident was just "horseplay."

"Mr. Ogloff, just for a joke, came up and stuck a sticker on his back that said, 'I'm gay lol,' and then didn't think anything of it," an Aldergrave Community Secondary School grade 10 student, who witnessed the incident, told the CBC. "Nobody ever did, because we always mess around with the teacher and he always messes back. Right? It's friendly"

The student also told the news station that the teen was offended and clearly upset. He said the student "walked out of the room and went to the principal and called him. The next day we came to school and Ogloff wasn't there."

This isn't the first time Ogloff has been in hot water. In 2011, he made comments to a seventh grader, and comments he made to a student in grade 12 during class resulted in his receiving a verbal warning and a letter from the school district.

The school district suspended the teacher from work without pay for 10 weeks last November for acting unprofessionally and disrespectfully. He also had to take some courses and meet with the student. The CBC reports the British Columbia Commissioner of Teacher Regulation has now suspended Ogloff's teaching certificate for two weeks. He will not be able to teach from Sept. 22 to Oct. 5.

Martin Rooney, local LGBT activist, told the CBC he was surprised there was no "sensitivity" despite the conversation surrounding around LGBT students. Another activist, Dara Parker, said the teacher's actions were "completely wrong."