One of Hooterville's finest was arrested for drunken driving over the weekend. This is not an Earth shattering event, from time to time one of the local cops gets arrested for one thing or another. Like most places, I suppose.
What mystifies me is that the offenders are always put on paid leave pending an investigation. If the offense is not too egregious, arrestee usually takes his or her punishment and gets to come back to work.
When I worked for Tedious Systems, a DUI bust, or most any other arrest, would get you fired the next day, no leave pending, no investigation..
I think that public employees enjoy a level of protection not available to us average citizens in the private sector.
When I was working in the middle school, a job I wanted was held up because the incumbent teacher was contesting his dismissal for striking a kid. Setting aside the fact that the kid probably had it coming, how much investigation does it take to ax a guy who hits a student in front of thirty other kids?
Just this past week, a teacher at one of the local middle schools was arrested on this way into the building on charges that he had sex with a student on campus. He is suspended with pay, pending his dismissal. Based on stuff he posted on Facebook and emails that he sent from his account to the kid, there is little doubt that at a minimum he was conducting an inappropriate relationship with the kid.
God bless the spokesman for the Hooterville Public Schools who in commenting on the situations, said that the teacher had been "assigned to work from home." I guess saying he was assigned to work from jail cell is not in the HR handbook.
Anyway, just a thought for today.
I never said it was a coherent thought.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
May 19, 2009
We are enjoying a brief respite from the heat. It is only supposed to get to 85 tomorrow. Clouds, but no rain.
One of Hooterville's finest was arrested for drunken driving over the weekend. This is not an Earth shattering event, from time to time one of the local cops gets arrested for one thing or another. Like most places, I suppose.
What mystifies me is that the offenders are always put on paid leave pending an investigation. If the offense is not too egregious, arrestee usually takes his or her punishment and gets to come back to work.
When I worked for Tedious Systems, a DUI bust, or most any other arrest, would get you fired the next day, no leave pending, no investigation..
I think that public employees enjoy a level of protection not available to us average citizens in the private sector.
When I was working in the middle school, a job I wanted was held up because the incumbent teacher was contesting his dismissal for striking a kid. Setting aside the fact that the kid probably had it coming, how much investigation does it take to ax a guy who hits a student in front of thirty other kids?
Just this past week, a teacher at one of the local middle schools was arrested on this way into the building on charges that he had sex with a student on campus. He is suspended with pay, pending his dismissal. Based on stuff he posted on Facebook and emails that he sent from his account to the kid, there is little doubt that at a minimum he was conducting an inappropriate relationship with the kid.
God bless the spokesman for the Hooterville Public Schools who in commenting on the situations, said that the teacher had been "assigned to work from home." I guess saying he was assigned to work from jail cell is not in the HR handbook.
Anyway, just a thought for today.
I never said it was a coherent thought.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
One of Hooterville's finest was arrested for drunken driving over the weekend. This is not an Earth shattering event, from time to time one of the local cops gets arrested for one thing or another. Like most places, I suppose.
What mystifies me is that the offenders are always put on paid leave pending an investigation. If the offense is not too egregious, arrestee usually takes his or her punishment and gets to come back to work.
When I worked for Tedious Systems, a DUI bust, or most any other arrest, would get you fired the next day, no leave pending, no investigation..
I think that public employees enjoy a level of protection not available to us average citizens in the private sector.
When I was working in the middle school, a job I wanted was held up because the incumbent teacher was contesting his dismissal for striking a kid. Setting aside the fact that the kid probably had it coming, how much investigation does it take to ax a guy who hits a student in front of thirty other kids?
Just this past week, a teacher at one of the local middle schools was arrested on this way into the building on charges that he had sex with a student on campus. He is suspended with pay, pending his dismissal. Based on stuff he posted on Facebook and emails that he sent from his account to the kid, there is little doubt that at a minimum he was conducting an inappropriate relationship with the kid.
God bless the spokesman for the Hooterville Public Schools who in commenting on the situations, said that the teacher had been "assigned to work from home." I guess saying he was assigned to work from jail cell is not in the HR handbook.
Anyway, just a thought for today.
I never said it was a coherent thought.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
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9 comments:
Having worked as a spokesperson at various tedious times in my life, I can tell you every word is checked by Legal Counsel so that the person about whom you are issuing a non-comment won't sue you for the nature of the non-comment you just made. The levels of non-speak just feed off one another until you need to crunch down hard on an ice cube, just to get some sense of reality again.
Here's wishing you some rain, while you're at it.
I too have always wondered at what seemed to be a paid vacation. I would almost prefer a cessation of pay with compensation if proven innocent. I'm thinking mostly about people like cops who have wrongly shot or beat up poor citizens or teachers who prey on students.
On another ugly topic, I just heard that the dog fighter Vick was released from prison after serving only 21 months for some gruesome crimes against the animal world. It's unclear whether he will resume his position as QB of the Atlanta Falcons or take some other lucrative job. He is proposing to help campaign again teenage dog-fighting. That made me LOL! What a role model...
When I was in High School we had a policy when it came to teachers hitting kids--if we walked past a teacher slamming a kid into a locker, we just kept moving and didn't see anything. We were afraid of some of the teachers and I know that some of the teachers were afraid of some of the teachers! We also had some bullying scary students, but the very worst ones quit school and took their scary outside.
Yes, public officials and people who have money are definitely treated differently than the rest of us.
Suspended with pay. Ah how sweet that would be.
Enjoy the clouds and cool air, Merle!
It used to be that public employees suffered a distinct disadvantage when compared to the private sector in terms of pay. So they were awarded better benefits to compensate. Now, the private sector is in the toilet -- but the public employees are still lounging around with benefits that are ABSURDLY opulent compared to private industry. (I'm thinking banked sick/vacation days they can redeem for cash, special DROP-type retirement programs, etc.) The nature of disciplinary action against them is equally uneven -- as you said, a private employee in similar circumstances would be fired on the spot. Our government agencies need to modernize their employment agreements to bring them in line with private industry today -- but that's hard to do because AFSCME, the teachers' unions and others are so strong. (And I am not anti-government. In fact, most of my family worked or works for government in one capacity or another.)
There is quite the brouhaha going on here lately about how hard it is to fire bad teachers...
I once got slapped by my Math teacher, only once.
Man oh man, do I know what you mean.
In my district, you could not be fired, even if you were passed out drunk on the floor of your classroom. The worst they would do is transfer you.
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