88-year-old former Ontario teacher sentenced to five years for student sex assaults

A former elementary school teacher who taught in Hamilton and Burlington has been given a jail term of 65 months after being convicted of sex crimes against students.

Barbara Joan Baxter, now 88, received the sentence after being convicted of sexually assaulting five male students in the 1980s at Burlington’s Pineland Public School. She was a teacher in Hamilton during the 1960s.

It was not revealed how or where she will serve her sentence.

She was found guilty in February of 2025, but a number of circumstances led to a delay in sentencing.

The case came to light in 2022 when the first victim came forward and told police that while attending the school as a Grade 8 student during 1982-83 school year, he was sexually assaulted by a teacher.

A year later, another victim came forward.

Eventually, three others told police of similar assaults occurring.

The first victim testified that his initial complaints against the teacher were not believed, and it was not until he was an adult that the trauma of the events surfaced again, and he was urged to go to the police.

In court, victims said that Baxter would touch them, rub up against them, and eventually led to her performing oral sex on them in a backroom of her classroom. Another former student said he was assaulted at the woman’s house.

Several civil cases against Baxter and Halton District School Board are still before the courts.