TOP STORYA contract school bus driver in St. Paul, Minnesota, was still missing after an arrest was issued for his arrest for molesting a special education student. Two younger girls also reported that he also touched them inappropriately, but he wasn't investigated in those cases. Apparently, another complaint was investigated but resulted in no disciplinary actions.
This is one of our TRUST US stories that makes you want to march, broom in hand, to a school district office and just vent.
If a parent was this negligent in raising a child and failing to provide safety, the state child welfare agencies would step in.
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SENTENCED - Manufacturing marijuana
Two Michigan teachers, Bret Johnson and Keri Johnson, were sentenced to probation after after pleading guilty in August to manufacturing marijuana. For their personal use, they insist.
They both resigned from their high school teaching jobs, have felony convictions on their records and might lose their house as a drug asset seizure. However, they haven't lost their teaching licenses yet. State authorities couldn't predict it. Each case is decided on a case by case basis.
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SENTENCED - multiple counts of second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor
Richard Cea, 27, a high school math teacher in Connecticut, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for having sex with one student and raising the grade of another who sent him pictures of himself in her underwear. Both girls were 15-years-old.
In a story on his arrest, they said that the mother found a note in her daughter's bedroom about Cea.
"I can't believe I slept with Cea, EW! Lol But I was drunk and horny what can I do? Lol Still you can't say anything cause you slept with him five times now EW! No it was weird to say the least!"The three-way sex wasn't mentioned in the sentencing story.
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SENTENCED - (sorta) for sex with student
The newspaper described it as "an affair" but Joseph Tucker, 28, was arrested on suspicion of criminal sexual conduct with a female student and suspicion of tampering with a witness. He pleaded to -degree criminal sexual conduct for which it was thought he would get a 90-day sentence. The judge sentenced him 18 months in prison, but the judge stayed the sentence, ordering him to serve 3 months in the "Workhouse." He has to register as a sex offender. He was married with two children, ages 1 and 3.
The real crime? If he hadn't disobeyed the court instruction not to contact the victim, he would have gotten probation. (Minnesota)
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SENTENCED - (almost) for sex with student
Kevin Burns, 24, another high school math teacher, pleaded guilty to charges of criminal sexual contact and official misconduct for which he was sentenced to three years in prison - stayed while Burns appeals. The appeal? His lawyer said the court ignored the wishes of the victim and his father that he not be sent to prison. The judge ignored their recommendation, but stayed the sentenced until the appeal is heard. (New Jersey) Burns will be a sex offender no matter what.
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SENTENCED - 17 sex-related felony charges
Married to another teacher at the same high school with whom he has a 4-year-old son, Philip Sutliff, 34, was sentenced to 12 years, 8 months after pleading to 17 felony charges for having sex with a student. "He discredited his family, his profession and all those who believed in him," said the father of the victim.
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SENTENCING DELAYED
A plea agreement to two counts of attempted aggravated indecent liberties with a child meant dismissing two counts of indecent solicitation of a child, two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, aggravated criminal sodomy and one count aggravated intimidation of a witness. Humberto Gonzalez, 23, an assistant wrestling coach, would have been sentenced but that has been delayed while he is evaluated. Both his attorney and the prosecution recommended five years probation because Gonzalez had no prior criminal history.
He'll have to register as a sex offender, but it's a first offense, so the victim doesn't count. It's a freebie. (New Jersey)
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One of the first reforms that legislators ought to consider is that first offender status should not be considered in sentencing those convicted of offenses against children.
THE FOLLOWING TEACHERS WERE ARRESTED
Joseph Bradfield, 45. arrested on a weapons charge for bringing a gun onto school property. No details, but he isn't the first teacher to have done so. How the weapon was found and where wasn't mentioned in the story. (IOWA)
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Monica Marshall, 49. In Alabama, a beer-chugging teacher was arrested when she was spotted in her car hoisting a beer bottle to her mouth at a stop light. The car smelled of marijuana and the residue was on her blouse. A search of her car found a smoldering marijuana cigarette and a plastic baggie containing what the officer suspected to be marijuana. She resigned.
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Umesh Ramjattan, 22, a teacher in a New York school, was arrested for sending sexually explicit emails, including one with a picture of him and his girlfriend having sex to three female students. They were 12-years-olds.
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Holly Anna Hatcher, 25, a high school social studies teacher in Tennesse, was arrested for having sex with a 17-year-old male student. She is charged with six counts of statutory rape by an authority figure. It's a pretty safe bet to make with friends that she will get probation.
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GIVING THE BENEFIT OF DOUBT Part I
A student who twice reported Christina Butler, 33, to school authorities was suspended by the school for spreading rumors. That was before the Tampa, Florida, teacher was arrested for having sex with a ninth grade student in her special education class. And it wasn't the school or school district who contacted police. The police stopped a group of male teenagers in her vehicle and one of them blurted the truth out. The mother of the girl who was suspended doesn't think the school even bothered to investigate. So does a lawyer for the 16-year-old boy and the student who tried to get school authorities to act.
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Lawsuits are sometimes the only way to get schools to say they're sorry. Not that they do feel sorry because it's taxpayer money that goes to payouts and doesn't really hurt them individually or financially. And then those confidentiality clauses guarantee that they don't acknowledge wrongdoing and no one is the wiser to the reason why the school or school district was liable. All bought and paid for by your tax dollars.
GIVING THE BENEFIT DOUBT TO COLLEAGUES Part II
In Urbana, Illinois, the parent of one child who originally reported Jonathon Andrew White, a second grade teacher, to authorites, spoke at an evidentiary hearing that will determine what evidence is allowed into the upcoming trial. She contacted the school principal on Nov 2. Her child wasn't interviewed until five days later. White was not removed from the classroom where he had contact with the victim every day, or with what later would be determined to be nine victims, until January of the next year.
It was pure accident that the parent met a police officer's wife and told her of the "banana game" White played with the blindfolded children. White was previously investigated in 2004 and forced to resign at another school.
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APPEALING her FIRING
In Washington, a special education teacher is appealing the district's decision to fire her. A retired judge will decide the issue. But the school thinks she has boundary problems, showed extremely poor professional judgment, and exhibited serious insubordination. When it gets to the point where a 62-year-old teacher is so emotionally involved with a student that she wants to adopt him, there may be a line in the sand.
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UNDERCOUNT OF TEACHER MISCONDUCT CASES
Is a problem in every state for various reasons. At this blog we estimate that we gather less than 1% or 2% of the teacher abuse cases because most are either dismissed by the school after shoddy investigations or don't hit the newspapers and we don't catch every story out there when it is published. So when an Indiana reporter repeated the statistic that there were 17 cases of sexual misconduct with students in five years, we looked at the cases we have profiled.
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QUOTE of the DAY
The school district spokesman in Tampa, Florida, on their new 45-minute in-service training that didn't, apparently, phase Christina Butler one bit.
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TEACHER STRIKE AND ADVOCACY JOURNALISM
A reporter following the two week Seneca Valley, Pennsylvania, teachers strike epitomizes the kind of lazy reporting that makes functioning in a democracy difficult. Thankfully, there's the Internet for taxpayers and voters who really want to know the facts. It isn't malice on the part of the media but it is lazy journalism, especially in the news rooms where those who oversee reporters and edit their material and should send them back to the field with instructions to tell the damned story, don't do that. Possibly because they are sympathetic to the strikers and unions or because they themselves are lazy. We're betting it's sympathy because newspapers have union concerns in their printing plants, political candidates they support that are funded by union "donations" and what they consider in many cases a bond with other "professionals." Either way, the price of a newspaper is still 25 cents to 50 cents. That's about what it's worth - for a month subscription.
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