Summary June 25, 2007Follow links for updated information.
Arrested
A teacher's aide at an elite Manhattan school was arrested for a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl. Timothy Avery, 25, is also charged with criminal sexual conduct and endangering the welfare of a child. He pleaded not guilty.
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In Alabama, Anthony Tollison, 27, a special education teacher's aide, was arrested and indicted for second-degree rape of a student. No details available.
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Retired teacher Philip Riviere, 61, was arrested after National Guardsmen at an air show called police to arrest him for video voyerism. He was photographing the underwear of women. He claims he got the idea from a web site on photography. (Let's hope they check his computer at home.)
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Positively scarey arrest of a 46-year-old middle school counselor in Boulder, Colorado, who was turned in by an, er, escort lady because he expressed a fond wish for having sex with a 12-year-old girl. Police contacted him as an, er, escort lady and arrested him for solicitation of prostitution. THEN, the newspaper recalled this was the same guy that the Rocky Mountain News wrote about who talked online about kinky sex to a reporter and formed the basis of a 1994 story that prompted his school to ask him to resign. Thirteen years later and he's counseling middle school students.
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Pleaded No Contest
("Guilty, but you can't prove it, but I don't want to take a chance that you might.")
A 53-year-old coach pleaded no contest to fondling a 15-year-old female student. It doesn't even bear thinking about how a man that age could act so stupidly, irresponsibly, and betray so many people. (Ohio)
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Sentenced
To five and a half years for a year-long sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female student, Fidel Vasquez,29, will be on sexual offender probation after prison for nine and a half years. When the story of his arrest broke, we checked Greatschools.com for Haines City High School and were struck then by the heartbreak of one parent who wants more for her child than a bad school.
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In California, Marco Irigoyen, 43, an elementary school teacher, was sentenced to seven years for three counts of lewd conduct with a minor. He pleaded no contest to reduced charges. There were four victims.
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Unfunded Public Pensions
In Texas, the tab for all unfunded public pensions is estimated to be $23 BILLION. The worst pension, however, is the Teacher Retirement System of Texas with a current unfunded liability of $13 BILLION. The attorney general wants some common sense reforms.
We've covered other stories about unfunded teacher pensions. In Connecticut, the unfunded teacher pension liability is $6.9 BILLION. In Michigan, the unfunded liability is $25 BILLION. In Illinois, it's $40.7 BILLION. Oklahoma, though, has the worst unfunded teacher fund liability - as a measure of inability to repay - of $7 BILLION.
Teamster Teachers (Shudder)
In Las Vegas, the Teamsters Union wants to take over contract negotiations for the 13,000 Clark County teachers currently in the teacher's union. It's like old home week for the Teamsters who under Jimmy Hoffa invested union money in the 1950s and 1960s in developing the gambling resort town.
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More Teachers Than They Can Afford
That's how a retired J.P Morgan exec described Vermont schools. It's true of most states, but he's now on a school board and documents the looming disaster. As for value for money, taxpayers are not being well served. No kidding.
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More Teacher Gripes
If you wanted to do a blog on teacher grievances, complaints, whinges and whines, you could easily find the material. That's because the gripers have a direct line to newspapers who carry their complaints every day. In San Leandro, California, they're miffed because they're being disrepected. If you think that sounds like material for a rapper to develop into mindless drivel, remember these are teachers who don't like the fact that a sub-standard school wants to shuffle teachers around to better provide for students. If the teachers worked in an office, they'd grab the pencil cup and their nameplates and move to the new cubicle. But these are professional malcontents who belong to a Professional Moaners Union in a school that rates a 2.
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Da Boss is Dead
The former boss that is of the Miami-Dade county's teachers' union. He was 81 and had a good life, mostly on union money, which is why he served time in jail. Depending on the newspaper you read, he was a labor hero or a crook. In any case, Pasquale ''Pat'' Tornillo Jr. left a legacy of cruddy schools in one of the worst, but most expensive to run, school districts in the country. A gift of collective bargaining. Thank you, Pasquale.
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