Summary July 20, 2007Follow links for updated information.
ARRESTED
Two Ohio teachers who also work as coaches were busted in a Kentucky hotel room for drug possession when a hotel wanted them evicted for a loud party. Even after the arrest, according to one report, Russell Fallon, 29, and Daniel Little went on to teach a week long football clinic for Mason students. Aren't they required to notify the school within 24-hours of an arrest? Or do they only have to call for felony arrests? In any case, it's unlikely the school will have sufficient grounds to fire the two, which means those current 7th and 8th graders can always justify using drugs as they recall their middle school.
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PLEADED GUILTY - Child Endangerment
A Teaneck, New Jersey, school principal pleaded guilty to third-degree charge of official misconduct and fourth-degree child endangerment for engaging in sex talk with a teenage boy and asking him to expose himself. The student wore a wire. Joe White, 61, was tried in 2003 on charges of fondling another 17-year-old boy, one that he and his wife were planning to adopt. The trial ended with an acquittal. You wonder if in retrospect those jurors don't feel some shame.
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SENTENCED
A North Carolina teacher was sentenced to two years, suspended, with 45 days in jail, minus the 22-day credit for time in an alcohol treatment center, leaving her 23 days to serve. Her license has been revoked three other times, and she has been involved in two crashes. The latest arrest was while driving to school with a 7-year-old neighbor boy in the car. She had a blood alcohol at 7 am four times the legal limit. She nearly hit two cars. Vickie White Leavitt, 48, got off easy. Considering. The rest of the town has just been - lucky.
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LAWSUIT FALLOUT
As a result of a lawsuit against the Fayette County School Board in Kentucky, two teachers have been arrested. A third teacher who was accused, but not arrested, was located in Las Vegas where he teaches despite a misdemeanor conviction for sex solicitation and a second suspension 1991 for drinking beer on campus. Whether police arrest him or not, the entire investigation has led to some interesting questions about teacher standards in Nevada.
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OOPS - THEIR BAD (only it could have been much worse)
A school district in Alabama only found out about prior arrests of one of their teachers six months after they hired him. They let him go in May before they were notified by the state Department of Education that, despite the arrests, Keaton Lamar Battle, 34, met the suitability criteria for employment. In July he was arrested for enticing a child for immoral purposes for activities with two boys. Score ONE for the school and ZILCH for the judgement of the Alabama Department of Education.
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ANOTHER OOPS
A North Carolina school board quickly backtracked after offering a woman the job of principal of an elementary school before a background check came in. Her husband was never charged with the crime but, nevertheless, the board wavered. Perhaps because they had a superintendent in 1999 who resigned after they found out she was involved in two lawsuits.
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Questionable Judgement
At the request of the school board, a school superintendent sent a letter to the court asking for a local anchorman to speak to Driving Education students. Hard to tell what he could teach them. The anchorman is planning on pleading guilty after killing a pedestrian while drunk driving. The school board and the superintendent might have been merely responding to the request of the anchorman's attorney, but calling drunk driving that resulted in death "misconduct" smacks of insensitivity. And using a celebrity to make a point better made by the victim's family only proves you're celebrity struck. Or dumb.
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RANT OF THE DAY
A recent case illustrates perfectly how the near-impossibility of revoking a teacher's license gives the defendant a bargaining chip in plea negotations with public prosecutors that no other group of citizens is given. Tenure is the gift that keeps on giving.
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LAWSUIT
Another former student is claiming a school board, and a school knew that a teacher was sexually abusing the special education student. The student is now in prison himself for robbery. What is bizarre is that the mother of the boy only found out about the situation when the teacher told her that she loved her son and then told her about the sexual relationship. Maybe the teacher expected a gold star. She got six months in jail instead.
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