Summary - October 2, 2007

TOP STORY
Thomas Baudier, 22, a Northport, NY teacher was acquitted of all charges after a 10-day bench trial.
TT - Link

SENTENCED - Sexual Imposition
In Ohio, Kent Whitman, 53, was sentenced to 120 days in jail after pleading no contest to sexual imposition in kissing and fondling a 15-year-old girl. He will also will be listed as a Tier I sex offender, meaning he must register with the sheriff's office in the county in which he lives annually for the next 15 years.
TT - Link

SENTENCED - Sexual Imposition
Another Ohio teacher, Scott Fazekas, 28, was sentenced to 25 days at the Multi-County Correctional Center and will be under community controlled sanctions for the next three years. He must also register as a sexually-orientated offender after he pleaded guilty to menacing by stalking and sexual imposition in connection to unwanted sexual contact with a 16-year-old female student.
TT - Link

SENTENCED - Improper Acts with a Student
Kumi Houston, 48, an Austin, Texas, teacher's aide was sentenced to 120 days in jail -- not prison -- and seven years of probation. She pleaded guilty in July to allowing a 11-year-old boy to touch and kiss her breasts in her bedroom. She's 48. He's 11. It's beyond sick.
TT - Link

SENTENCED - Embezzlement
It's always disheartening when a teacher enlists the aid of friends, family and community to protest his innocence and then pleads guilty to the charges, leaving even more victims to wonder how they came to trust someone like Gregory White, 35. He embezzled money from the Band Boosters club and was sentenced to two years of supervised probation and suspended a four year prison term. He's still facing other charges. (Tennessee)
TT - Link

ARRESTED - Sexual Assault of a Student
Sandra Borrego, 41, a dance teacher at Most Precious Blood Catholic School in Corpus Christi, Texas, was arrested connection with the sexual assault of the boy who took dance classes at the school in late 2006. Police believe the 13-year-old boy fathered her child. NOTE- she only rents space from the school. She is not affiliated with them.
TT - Link

ARRESTED - DWI
We get e-mails asking why we bother with stories about teachers who are arrested while drunk driving. The reason is that thousands of students die every year in drunk driving accidents. They have enough peer pressure urging them to drink. They don't need examples of teachers who slam their car into a parked police car, injuring a police officer. Or school principals. Scott Reese, 36, is the assistant principal at Longwood Senior High School.
TT - Link

ARRESTED - Drugs and Alcohol on School Grounds
A Virginia social studies teacher was arrested after a scheduled police search at the high school where he worked. No word whether any drugs were found on the students, but Cary Forrest was arrested when police discovered drugs and alcohol linked to him.
Can you spell S-T-U-P-I-D ?
TT - Link

ARRESTED - Suspicion of Having Inappropriate Contact with a Student
David Suino, 47, was arrested in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, after a 10-year-old male student alleged that that Suino put his hand up the front and the back of his shirt, and then rubbed his back and belly. There was no sexual contact.
TT - Link

ARRESTED - and Handcuffed at the School
Second grade teacher Amy Snead Lee, 36, was busted, along with 49 others in North Carolina in a crackdown on multiple purchases of pseudoephedrine pills, the main ingredient in crystal methamphetamine. In the drug trade, people who buy pseudoephedrine to trade for the methamphetamine are called "smurfs." The things you learn writing about education today.
TT - Link

LEGAL RULING in KOREA
Parents and students are one up on American parents and students with a Korean Supreme Court ruling that sided with parents who sued after a 23-day teachers strike. It took the parents seven years to win the case, but the court, apparently, decreed that schools exist for students and parents, who pay taxes and school registration fees. AMAZING CONCEPT.
TT - Link

Our "Trust Us - We know better" Story of the Day
In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Brunswick County School District has had their share of problem teachers. Enough so they wanted to hire a specialist to talk about sexual harassment. The problem was that the former teacher who founded the non-profit Teachers for Change they were planning to hire was arrested and charged twice with having sex with a private school student, followed by a guilty plea and convictions on reduced charges. They're having second thoughts about hiring her to conduct any more presentations.
TT - Link