Reason 541 to HomeSchool: Your Kid Won’t Go To Court for Forgetting His Lunch Money
When teachers aren’t busy plotting the rape of your child and swapping kid porn photos in the teachers’ lounge, they are coming up with insipid “zero tolerance” policies that highlight how educators are too stupid to make basic judgments. For instance, a kid who gets a 40-cent reduced lunch price because his family isn’t well off, forgot his lunch money. He took a lunch anyways because he was hungry and the school sent him to Juvenile Court because they had a “zero tolerance policy” regarding school lunch theft. Normal, rational people would have taken an IOU until the next day.
Sumner county spokesman Jeremy “the douche” Johnson.
From NewsChannel5 here:
Gallatin, TN- A Sumner County ninth grader is charged with theft and sent before a judge for taking a 40-cent lunch without paying.
Krista Goetleuck thinks her son’s school went way too far. She said her son is not a troublemaker, he was just hungry. She said one day during the last semester, she forgot to give him 40 cents for lunch.
John received a three-day in-school suspension and a court date.
Jeremy Johnson, Sumner County Schools spokesman, said the school has dealt with a lunch theft problem. Johnson said Goetleuck’s son was one of seven students caught stealing.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy, which means if the SRO’s see any theft or crime they are told to prosecute,” Johnson said.
Her son appeared in juvenile court Tuesday morning and settled his case. The theft charge will be wiped from his record as long as he goes to school and behaves for the next six months.
Wow, its too bad our educators can’t adopt a zero tolerance policy about keeping their genitals to themselves. Like the Gallatin High School teacher, Holly Hatcher who raped a 17-year-old student in her home?
Scary looking kid-raping Teacher scoffs at zero-tolerance policy against raping students.
Where was Jeremy Johnson’s zero-tolerance policy then?
I would be sympathetic to his case IF he told a school official he had forgot his lunch money and was denied food. When I was in school, you COULD get an IOU at the office if you left your money or tickets at home, but it was the students responsibilty to do so. Sounds to me like he just took a lunch…that’s called theft.
I’m pretty sure Mr. Johnson is not the person making this decision. Apparently he is the PR guy for the Sumner County School board so he says what he is told to say. I doubt he has the power to make this kind of charge.
Greg,
the article doesn’t say whether or not he was caught red handed, but if its like other school lines, he had to walk past the attendant. And its for a 40cent lunch that probably tasted like a 40cent lunch- the punishment for taking it should not have been 3 days ISS and a court date for a first time offense.
And Allsion, I know Mr. Johnson is not the culprit, but his photo is there because of his smug smile and haircut. And he sucks at PR. Rather than reaffirm the zero-tolerance policy, he should have spoken about giving parents the ability to express their concerns (even if he didn’t mean it), or say that actions were only taken after careful review, blah blah blah. But he didn’t say that. It makes him and his school board look like nitwits.
This seems so excessive, there must be more to this story that’s not being reported. Like perhaps he has a long history of theft or misbehavior or he’s just a totally wretched prick and this 40 cent lunch theft was the last straw. If he was a sweet innocent boy who took food because he was starving I doubt there’d be this big production.
I think there were some problems with other kids stealing too which prompted the “zero tolerance” policy. Regardless, it was a stupid policy, designed to remove any responsibility from the educators to make simple decisions based on common sense and morals.
Remember when they used to send letters home to the parents of kids that misbehaved? Whatever happened to that? Now they just bypass all reasonable attempts at controlling children and shove them at the courts.
If you noticed in the Channel 5 story, it mentioned the family had only recently moved to this area. The reason is because the young man in question had been arrested several times in Florida, and he had been removed from school. With regard to the lunch incident at this school, this was the 15th time he had been caught stealing his lunch. On other occassions in addition to his thefts, the cafeteria manager had purchased his lunch approximately 15 times, the assistant principal had purchased his lunch approximately 10 times, and several students had purchased his lunch around 20 times. Each of the times he was caught stealing his lunch, he was asked not to steal, punished by having to clean up the lunch room, etc. The fact that he was even able to receive a reduced price lunch is because an employee of the school helped him fill out the reduced lunch application because his mother wouldn’t complete the form. This school, its emplyees, and his fellow students have been more than tolerable. I suppose at some point one has to take action severe enough to hopefully show this student (and his mother) that you can’t continually take advantage of others. of course the media would never complicate their reporting with facts … that just wouldn’t be nearly as fun.
Blogger, thanks for the update on this. You wouldn’t happen to have any links or other information to support this new info, would you?
It is apparent there is more to this story than what was reported, but I still have to say that the school took a severe reaction to this problem.
I do not have any links, but do have very reliable sources, and personally know some involved. In addition to his antics at school, this child has also been in trouble in the community and with the police for what up to this point are fairly minor items. At what point do these minor instances, if left unpunished, become major issues? I believe the actions of this SRO may turn out to be the best shot this child has in being set back on the path of acceptable behavior before he does something that will get him into to serious trouble.
Hey Pat, maybe you should get your facts straight before calling people ridiculous names. First and foremost, go read the police report and see that the kid was stealing gatorade, not lunch. This theft was for the sake of theft, not for eating. Secondly, Jeremy Johnson was not staffed at the time of the rape incident. So, how about you keep your names to yourself and quit listening to sob stories and lies. – From a homeschool graduate.
Matthew,
Unless you want to provide any links to a police report, I have to stick with my original assessment of the story. And Jeremy Johnson wasn’t an employee four months ago when the rape happened? I think he was.
According to this article, he was still communications lackey in September 2007 when the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (kinda like the FBI, but on a state level) was brought to the same school to investigate why the fuck 2000 bucks was missing in cash.
This was before John Goetluck moved to Tennessee. So theft was an ongoing problem in the school, and it appears it was likely a cafeteria worker pocketing the cash.
From here:
Sob stories? Lies? Nope, just more mismanagement of the education system by flunkies and morons.
Jeremy Johnson began his employment with the Sumner County School system on January 7, 2008. This can be verified by calling 615-451-5200. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Thanks Blogger. I guess with teacher rape going on and embezzlement by the cafeteria workers, it is little wonder why the school board needs a PR person, huh? Talking about throwing a person to the wolves.