Teacher Smoked Pot at School!

[irish223]

This obviously could not have been one of our Highly Qualified teachers!

A 46 year old teacher in a northern Chicago suburb was caught smoking pot in the teachers' lounge at school. What was she thinking??

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-teacher-arrest-08-bothmay08,0,192329.story?track=rss

[smithmt]

WOW, I'm surprised that this person is certified. I bet Waukegen ISD is going to be requiring UAs from teachers.

It's an oversimplification to say that Waukegan is a Suburb of Chicago... I know that the sprawl of Chicago is huge, but Waukegan is in the next county north.

[irish223]

It's an oversimplification to say that Waukegan is a Suburb of Chicago... I know that the sprawl of Chicago is huge, but Waukegan is in the next county north.

Really? Waukegan IS considered a suburb of Chicago, albeit a far northern suburb. I didn't think it was necessary to analyze the geography of our area to post a news blurb.

[jsfowler]

I think I had a few teachers who did that in high school :)

[Chef Dave]

It is not particularly surprising that this happened.

Chicago is the 3rd largest public school district in the United States with 27,039 teachers, 633 schools, and 727,319 students. From a statistical probability viewpoint, it is almost inevitable that something like this was bound to happen and indeed will happen every so often.

Chicago has long had a problem with attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers.

This is not to say that all teachers in Chicago are substandard or immoral. Most of them are probably quite dedicated and hardworking.

What I am saying is that given the size of this district, it's practically impossible for every teacher to be a model of professional excellence.

Consider the following:

On February 9, 2008, a first year Chicago elementary teacher was fired after she taped a student to a chair.

On May 11, 2006, an art teacher in Chicago was fired after she made a number racist slurs at her charter school. When a student smeared her jacket with paint, she allegedly snapped, "All Mexicans are criminals" and "they were all born to clean floors."

On November 10, 2004, a 33 year old female special education teacher met with three teenage boys for an evening of pot, booze, and sex. She was charged with three counts of criminal sexual abuse. She was also fired.

Large school districts attract all sorts of people. When you're as large as the Chicago district, it's almost inevitable that the human resource office will have to scrape the barrel to fill all of its vacant positions.

[irish223]

Chef Dave, this didn't actually happen in the Chicago Public Schools. It was in a suburban district that is smaller, but just as economically challenged.

[irish223]

On February 9, 2008, a first year Chicago elementary teacher was fired after she taped a student to a chair.

One more thing...
The February incident was a story out of Florida. When I responded to it, I recalled the story of one of my colleagues who had done something similar, and was fired. This was also in a suburban district, not CPS.

Oh boy, the entire Chicagoland area looks pretty suspect now, doesn't it? :eek:

But as you said, Chef Dave, it's a huge and hugely populated area. There are bound to be some bad apples. Hopefully, we're weeding them out. (pun intended)

[TookieWilliam]

I don't see how the comment "I surprised this teacher was certified" applies here. It's easy to have 20/20 vision that you can judge people by their future actions that have not taken place yet.


My band director got fired for pot. He ended up dieing while coming home (drunk) from his second career a couple of years later. His wife left him, etc. His entire life came crashing down after he was busted.

We also just had a principal get busted in a sting operation recently. His wife set up the meeting, and the person she was talking to was a cop. Rumors have it that she set him up in order to get a leg up on the impending divorce litigations. Even though the wife set the entire thing up, the police said they weren't pressing charges on her because "whatever punishment this family recieves will be enough from the prosecution of just him, no need to involve both" Smells fishy to me. I wonder if the same reasoning would apply for murder.

[wig]

Actually , Chef Dave, Waukegan is not part of the Chicago School District. It only has three high schools. http://www.wps60.org/wpsd60/about.php
If I recall corrextly, it is fairly close to the Wisconsin border. However it does not make any difference where it happened. It really makes no difference whether she is highly qualified or not (was this tongue in cheek?). It showed poor judgment on her part and she deserves to be fired IMO.