Summary June 13, 2007
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ARRESTED - Drugs
A second North Carolina teacher was arrested for drugs. This time, dealing. Brian Zickefoose, 26, was arrrested after an undercover agent bought cocaine five times from him in two months. He'd been teaching since January, so he was dealing while teaching. He was scheduled to be hired by another school district where a relative is the Superintendent of Business for the school district. TT - Link
He was the second teacher this month from the same school district arrested on cocaine charges. Both were elementary school teachers.
ARRESTED - Sex with Student
A drum instructor at a private school in Pennsylvania was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old female student he was driving home during a school break. Michael Culp, 30, was fired. He miscalculated. The age of consent is 16 in Pennsylvania. The motel was in New York where the age of consent is 17. TT - Link
ARRESTED - Video Voyerism
A 41-year old physical education teacher who works at an elementary school was arrested at a water park after complaints that he was taking pictures of young girls in bathing suits. The girls were 10 and 13. Police found 13,000 pictures of young girls in swimsuits on his computer. Duane Champagne isn't going to get any photography awards. The charge is video voyerism which is a crime in Louisiana. Even if it wasn't, it's creepy as heck. TT - Link
PLEADED NO CONTEST - Sex with Student age 13
Perhaps we should consider Nepotism as a category. Cora Solorio, 24, pleaded no contest ("You can prove it, but I won't admit it.") to committing a lewd act on a child and to two charges of having oral sex with a child. The boy was 13-years-old. Her stepfather is a member of the board of education. (California) TT - Link
Teaching is kind of like having your own sexual playground.
PLEADED GUILTY
The president and treasurer of the Delaware teachers' union pleaded guilty to making false statements in connection with his $163,000 student loan. By hiding income, he hoped to get better terms for repayment. Barry M. Young is 53. How long has that loan been outstanding, anyway? TT - Link
Role Model
Apparently, the School Superintendent must have dissed her because she refused to accept a transfer to another school. She didn't like the way he treated "competent and successful employees." We think she was referring to herself. In any case, she's now working in the district office and making the same salary. The taxpayers are screwed. The whole episode should be a humiliation and it's public performance at its worst. It defintely is NOT professionalism. TT - Link
ASSAULT ON COMMON SENSE
The attempt to strip a school principal of her administrative license in New Jersey gives you insight into the mine field that's educator discipline. SIX years after she was accused of ordering a fire alarm deactivated at a school, an administrative law judge -- not anyone elected by or accountable to taxpayers - ruled in favor of the principal, deciding that "the allegations were not proved." Catchy phrase that. Mind you, had she been found guilty, the taxpayers would have paid her $120,000 a year for six years while the system took the long, bureaucratic route to discipline. Everyone involved, no doubt, received salaries that were easily two times the median average salary for the state of New Jersey. (If you subtracted public servants from the median average, it's probably closer to 4x.) TT - Link
UPDATE on Illegal Teachers Strike
In Quincy, Massachusetts, a judge fined the union $150,000 for the four-day strike. Strikes by public employees in Massachusetts are illegal. It did not, however, stop Quincy teachers from walking out of school for four days, delaying final exams for students, picketing, and making public spectacles of themselves. As usual, they shamelessly solicited students to walk in support. (The only other people who regularly make use of children for confrontations are Marxists in Southeast Asia and in Africa.)
TT - Link TT - Link to original story.
