Teachers from Brittania School wear signs while on strike in Vancouver
Teachers from Brittania School wear signs while on strike in Vancouver, British Columbia June 17, 2014. British Columbia teachers across the province are on strike due to failed negotiations with the provincial government. REUTERS/Ben Nelms

A Canadian teacher was suspended after he had played a homophobic prank on a student.

Daniel Mark Ogloff, a teacher of metal fabrication and machining at Aldergrove Community Secondary School, played a prank on a Grade 11 student. He wrote "I'm gay" on a masking tape and stuck it on the jacket of the male student. He also let other students of the school take pictures of the boy with the tag. The boy left the class without being aware of the tag affixed on his jacket.

The incident, which took place on Wednesday, was apparently enough for the district to suspend him without pay for 10 weeks. This was, however, not the first time Ogloff was formally reprimanded for his actions. He was earlier warned verbally for the school district for his comments to the students of Grade 7 in 2011. He also received another warning through a letter after he had made a remark to a Grade 12 student, The Globe and Mail reported.

Ogloff allegedly spoke to the Grade 12 student disrespectfully and inappropriately. The student approached Ogloff in December 2012. She asked him why she happened to be the only one in the class to fail. Ogloff allegedly addressed other students and said that the student wanted to know why they had passed while she had not. He told the student that she had never been in the class and she had not done anything there.

The homophobic incident took place in British Columbia. The victim of the incident called the incident "horseplay" to the officials. In addition to the 10-week suspension, the British Columbia Commissioner for Teacher Regulation also suspended Ogloff's teaching certificate for a couple of weeks. The suspension period started on Sept 22, and it will remain until Oct 5. Ogloff is required to go through a teacher mentorship programme as well as other courses when he returns.

The Province reported the details of the report against Ogloff. "Ogloff placed a piece of masking tape on the back of the jacket of a male Grade 11 student. Ogloff then gestured 'shhh' to the students after putting the tape on and pointed at another student and mouthed words to the effect, 'It was him,'" the report says, "Ogloff considered this to be horseplay."

Ogloff apparently disputed the appropriateness of the disciplinary action taken against him.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au