Feb 27, 2013
Student hides in a locker to catch a thief, it turns out to be a popular teacher
High school students in Linden, California had been noticing valuables missing from their bags after gym class all year. Finally, one sophomore decided to do something about it. Hiding in a locker with a camera, she waited for the culprit and was dismayed to see that the person who had been pilfering from her and her classmates was a veteran teacher who everybody loves.
Adding to the drama, the principal asked the sleuthing student to delete the video. Fortunately, she’d already shared it with her dad.
Here’s the report from News10…
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The principle ought to be fired.
Imagine what would (or wouldn’t have) happened if she had just gone to the principal without having first taken the video.
I once had a contract at a public school to interpret sign language. I left my coat in a gym class and there was 50 dollars in the coat. A student found the coat and the money and turned it into the coach. Latter I returned and was told the coat was turned in. I asked the coach about it and he said he had no coat. The student who told me of the coat went to the coach with me and this time the coach admitted that he had my coat but no money. The student reminded the coach that there was 50 dollars in the coat. The coach then said that he had my coat and my 50 dollars. I asked for it back and he said he would only give me back the coat.
It was a tricky situation. If he did not sign my subcontracting papers, the school system would not pay me for the entire day and possibly for the entire week. If I called the cops, there was a good chance I would have lost out a weeks pay because of the coach, who admitted he took my 50 dollars and absolutely refused to give it back.
The school had a lot of black students and the student who turned the coat in was black and the coach was white. I mention this because when I tell people that a teacher stole 50 dollars from me at this peticular school, I get a lot of “oh you know” and racist comments about taking a contract at that school, but it was the students who found my money and tried to give it back, and it was the teacher who looked me right in the eye and said “I have your money and I am going to keep it. What are you going to do about it?”
The teacher would have lied by the time the cops came and all the kids would have gone home and I would not have known what student was the witness and the teacher would have refused to sign my subcontracting forms and then claimed I made a false claim against him, and he had a union contract to support him and I did not, and that school had an unearned reputation of bad students.
So what eventually happened? Did they get fired, did you get it back?
Principal told her to destroy the evidence???? Wow now that’s something that also should have been recorded…
The sad part of this is that the students did the *right* thing, but feel badly about doing it “because she was a good teacher,” when it was the teacher who did the *wrong* thing. There is a violation here, but it’s not on the part of the students. Even when a *good* person does a bad thing, it’s still a choice they have made and they need to face the consequences, same as everyone else. That’s what keeps us on the right track — knowing there are absolutes.
Amen! :)
Totally agree. The students should not feel guilty.
This young woman learned a few important lessons here.
1) Doing the right thing is usually hard.
2) Don’t trust the people in charge.
3) Good people can do bad things.
Why is the video deleted? Did the principal force the student to remove it? Please tell me this didn’t occur at Steubenville High School…
It is part of the job. I do this all the time, at the workplace and around the neighborhood.