A former Kamloops-Thompson school district teacher has been suspended after admitting to professional misconduct in two separate incidents, including one in which she failed to properly respond after an Indigenous student disclosed a sexual assault.
A consent resolution agreement from the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation says Cinderella June Winter was employed by School District No. 73 at the time of the incidents.
Winter held earlier teaching certificates dating back to 1997 and currently holds a valid professional certificate of qualification issued under the Teachers Act in October 2022.
The first matter happened on Jan. 6, 2023, when Winter was working as a counsellor at a district secondary school.
The agreement says two students, identified as Student A and Student B, came to see Winter because Student A was upset about something another student had done.
Student B, who is Indigenous, was there to support Student A.
During the conversation, Student B disclosed that they had been sexually assaulted by Student C.
The agreement says Winter incorrectly assumed the sexual assault had been reported before and had already been dealt with.
As a result, she did not ask Student B about the disclosure or confirm whether it had been reported.
Winter also failed to report the disclosure to a school administrator or to Student B’s parent, as required by district policies.
The district issued Winter a letter of discipline on Feb. 8, 2023.
The agreement says Winter later offered to meet with Student B and Student B’s family in a restitution circle.
A second matter happened on June 12, 2023, when Winter was working as a teacher on call for a Grade 8 social studies class at another district secondary school.
The agreement says Winter told students to put away their phones, but not in their pockets near their “reproductive zones.”
She told the class that, based on a study, cellphone radiation could affect their ability to have children and could alter their DNA, causing birth defects.
The agreement says Winter told students that “if you don’t want to potentially be wiping your child’s bum for the rest of its life, you may want to think about making a habit of not keeping electronics in the ‘reproductive zone.’”
When two students questioned whether phones had enough energy to cause harm, Winter told the class she had seen a popcorn kernel pop when placed between two cellphones.
The agreement says she did not tell students she was basing that claim on a video she had seen.
Winter told the students “you can take it or leave it,” referring to the information she had shared about cellphone use.
At least one student later reported finding her comments strange.
The agreement says that after Winter gave a slide presentation left by the regular classroom teacher, there were 35 minutes of class time remaining.
A group of students told her they had finished the assignment and that their regular teacher allowed them to play games on classroom computers once they were done.
Winter allowed the students to play games, while she periodically used the classroom teacher’s computer to look up information about firewood hot tubs.
Because the computer was set to screen sharing, the search was projected onto a large screen for the whole class to see.
The district issued Winter a letter of discipline on June 27, 2023, suspended her for one day without pay and temporarily removed her qualifications for counselling positions in the district for six weeks.
The agreement says the district also told Winter she would be required to complete coursework, but had not identified any coursework before she retired from the district 21 months later.
Winter retired on March 22, 2025.
Under the consent agreement, Winter admitted the facts were true and admitted her conduct amounted to professional misconduct.
She also admitted the conduct was contrary to Standards 1 and 9 of the Professional Standards for B.C. Educators.
Winter agreed to a five-day suspension of her teaching certificate from May 4 to May 8, 2026.
In deciding that a five-day suspension was appropriate, the commissioner said Winter failed to discharge her duties as a school counsellor by not asking questions about the sexual assault disclosure and by not reporting it to school administrators or the student’s parents.
The agreement says Student B was harmed by that failure.
It also says Winter’s actions negatively affected the community’s feeling of trust and safety in the education system and did not contribute toward truth, reconciliation and healing.
The commissioner also found Winter’s classroom comments included demeaning language about people with disabilities and that she presented information to students as factual based on an unverified video.
