The Persecution of the New Zealand Teacher; Kathryn Pick

When Does Conviction Become Misconduct?My story of professional loss, tested values and personal transformationMy name is Kathryn Pick. I spent more than 30 years in education — as a teacher, SENCO, a Kahui Ako deputy principal serving over 3,000 students, and a principal for 12 years, including service on Ministry of Education panels. In 2023 I told part of my story under the pseudonym Principal X in A Day I Will Never Forget.In 2021 I was terminated from the principal’s role I loved, after I could not comply with the vaccine mandate on medical advice. During a Covid outbreak that Christmas, some of my school families were struggling in quarantine. With their full consent, I collected their Covid test-result information and shared it privately with a lawyer, seeking a second medical opinion, never sourced from any school database, despite what my board and the Teaching council later alleged.After a complaint from the doctor who had reviewed the results, my board reported me to the Teaching Council and the Privacy Commissioner without ever asking for my account. An independent investigation later found no evidence of any data breach. Yet the investigation continued for four and a half years.The Teaching Tribunal’s own Minute of 11 February 2026 acknowledged it was unclear what I knew about how the information I had provided to the lawyer might ultimately be used — the very question central to the finding of serious misconduct against me. Rather than resolving that uncertainty on the evidence available, the Tribunal drew an adverse inference from my lawful decision not to attend a further hearing for cross-examination, and concluded I had possessed the knowledge and intent it had previously acknowledged was unclear.In June 2026, I was struck off the teaching profession after more than 30 years. There was no finding that I had put any child at risk. Yet cancellation is the same maximum penalty available to the Tribunal in cases involving the sexual abuse of children.I have also been ordered to pay $45,500 in costs, on top of the $40,000 I had already spent defending myself — and, unemployed, I am unable to pay them.I don’t believe I’m above accountability but context, intent and proportionality matter.Support My GiveSendGo FundraiserIf you are in a position to help me meet the financial consequences of this four-and-a-half-year journey, you can donate here.Dear Subscribers (both paid and free),Cafe Locked Out started life as ‘Cafe Locked Down’ in Melbourne, right in the middle of the Covid years.Six years on, we’re still here — and we’re now reaching between five and six million people a month. That number isn’t just interviews. It includes the rants, the posts, the conversations, and everything else that happens in this space.In a purely commercial sense, the smart move would be to lock everything behind a paywall. Why do all this work and give it away for free?Because we’re not a normal podcast. We’re closer to an online community — and a lot of people in this community are doing it really hard. Some of us are living in tents.We simply can’t, in good conscience, cut those people off because they can’t afford a subscription.So instead of going fully paid, we want to say this:To everyone who already supports the work — thank you. You are the only reason we’re still able to keep going.And if you regularly take something from what we put out, and you can comfortably afford to chip in, we’d be genuinely grateful if you did.Your support doesn’t just keep the lights on. It keeps this space open for the people who need it most.Thank you for being here.Kelli and MichaelCafe Locked Out This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cafelockeddown.substack.com/subscribe