A B.C. high school teacher has had his teaching certificate cancelled and has agreed not to reapply for seven years after using Grindr to contact someone he came to understand was a 14-year-old boy.
Carlo Deni Pavan entered into a consent resolution agreement with B.C.’s commissioner for teacher regulation that was executed on Sept. 1.
According to the agreement, Pavan began messaging a Grindr profile in March 2023 that had no age listed.
The document says Pavan later learned the profile belonged to a teenaged male referred to as “the Youth.”
The Youth was not a real person, but an adult man posing as a youth in what the agreement describes as an attempt to “catch” people he suspected to be predators.
The agreement says Pavan used the account name “Big Bear.”
In the first exchange listed in the agreement, the person posing as the youth wrote: “Well I’m 14 so friends and maybe more idk.”
Pavan later replied: “But you’re 14.”
The agreement says the messages continued late into the night.
On March 14, 2023, Pavan and the person posing as the youth exchanged messages on Grindr from 10:23 pm until about 1:30 am.
In one exchange, Pavan asked: “What brings you on Grindr?”
After the person posing as the youth said he was 14, Pavan asked whether that was really him in his profile photo and whether he had any more pictures.
When the person posing as the youth said he was not sending “any dirty stuff,” Pavan replied: “Lol… I wasn’t asking I don’t wanna go to jail.”
The agreement says Pavan later suggested the person go for a walk.
“Maybe you should go for a walk too…” Pavan wrote.
When asked why he was inviting him, Pavan replied: “Do you want me to?”
The agreement says the time at which Pavan proposed meeting the youth on a walk was after 12:30 am.
Pavan also wrote that sending another photo was “too risky.”
When asked why, he replied: “There’s like vigilantes and cops I dunno if you’re real.”
According to the agreement, Pavan continued contacting the same profile over the following days.
On March 15, Pavan again initiated contact and asked: “Did you say that you met guys off Grindr before?”
He later asked: “What’d you do with them when you met?”
When the person posing as the youth responded that they did “stuff nothing too crazy,” Pavan wrote: “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re comfortable with /looking for.”
Pavan later asked: “So do you want to go for a drive or something?”
The next day, the messages moved from Grindr to text.
On March 18, the agreement says Pavan again initiated contact, and the person posing as the youth eventually suggested they could “grab a coffee and go to the waterfront or something.”
Pavan replied: “Sure.”
He later wrote: “I can pick you up.”
The two arranged to meet at a Tim Hortons.
When the person posing as the youth said he did not want to be seen leaving from home, Pavan asked: “You don’t want me to just pick you up at your place?”
Later, after telling the person there had “just been a shooting downtown,” Pavan wrote: “I can pick you up on your way if you want…”
The final messages listed in the agreement show Pavan saying he was at the meeting place.
The person posing as the youth wrote: “Brown jacket.”
Pavan replied: “White car.”
The agreement says that message was sent at 10:06 pm.
Shortly afterward, the adult man posing as the youth approached Pavan while Pavan was sitting in his car.
The agreement says Pavan drove away while the man filmed him.
The man later posted the messages and the video on Facebook, where Pavan was identified as a teacher.
Pavan was employed at the time as a high school teacher by School District No. 68, Nanaimo-Ladysmith.
The school district terminated his employment effective immediately on June 13, 2023.
The commissioner ordered Pavan’s teaching certificate suspended on April 11, 2023.
The agreement says Pavan admitted that the facts set out in the document were true.
He also admitted the conduct amounted to conduct unbecoming and was contrary to Standard 2 of the Professional Standards for BC Educators.
Pavan agreed to the cancellation of his certificate of qualification.
He also agreed that, for seven years from the effective date of the agreement, he will not apply for a certificate of qualification, independent school teaching certificate or any other authorization to teach in the kindergarten-to-Grade 12 education system.
In deciding that cancellation and a seven-year ban were appropriate, the commissioner considered that Pavan used a dating app to contact a person he later learned was an underage student.
The commissioner also considered that, “in asking to meet with the Youth alone at night, Pavan failed to maintain appropriate boundaries.”
The agreement says Pavan’s conduct became known to the public through the Facebook post.
It also says his actions undermined public confidence in the education system.
Under the agreement, Pavan cannot make any oral or written statement that contradicts, disputes or calls into question the terms of the agreement or the admissions made in it.
