Today’s Moron: Dave Wilson, the Porno Party Principal

Meet Dave. Dave used to be the man in charge at Louisville Male High School in Louisville, Kentucky. Dave is out of a job after his bosses learned he was a bit of a problem. How bad? Let’s see: there was the distinct smell of booze on his breath from time to time, and that raised some eyebrows. But hey, every school has a drunk teacher, right? I had a geography teacher for a couple of years in high school who missed every Monday first period, and would show up around lunch looking green and smelling like gin.

Dave’s big mistake wasn’t the drinking, though. It was the private porno party starring students. Some of his staffers reported that he got his sweaty hands on a copy of a school surveillance tape that had caught two students having sex in the cafeteria. He invited some teachers to his office, lowered the blinds, dimmed the lights, and projected the image on a big screen, making lewd comments throughout. Weather Station sources could neither confirm nor deny the presence of Miller High Life and Nacho Cheese Doritos.

The other teachers were outraged at the video, and at their boss’s behaviour, and stormed out, and one filed a complaint.

Wait, hold on. What’s a Male High School? Boys only? What kind of movie was this? I’ll Google it. Hmmm, it seems Dave is still listed as principal. That’s likely to change. It doesn’t say anything here about whether this is a co-ed school or not, but I guess it doesn’t matter. This isn’t about the school. It’s about the moron. Dave is a pig, and this is either child pornography or dangerously close to it. I’m stunned that no criminal charges were laid.

The part that irks me is the outcome. Dave was allowed to retire. He’ll get a pension, and benefits, and probably have his portrait hung in the hallway or something. I can’t stomach that kind of back-patting sendoff for pigs like this.

The school, though, is content to sweep the whole thing under the rug. Interim principal Ted Boehm told the local paper, the Courier-Journal, that the school had received no complaints and he didn’t think Pervy Drunken Dave’s reputation would suffer. Well, sure, Ted, but that’s because you’re hushing it up.

Dave’s reputation should suffer. Everyone should know what happened. Public shame is the only way to really punish these idiots who take pleasure from exploiting children. And I suspect Ted’s remark about “no complaints” is about to change.

10 Things My Principal Got Away With

About 25 or so years ago, I was working in a clothing store. One of my coworkers was a cute girl who would often tell me how much she hated her father. I would nod, agree that he sounded like a dick, and continue folding jeans while waiting for a chance to ask her out. And then, one day, her father came into the store, and I recoiled. It was my elementary school principal, the terror of my childhood, the most feared person in my small world. I hadn’t seen him since leaving that school in the fourth grade, but all those old feelings came roaring back.

He recognized me after a moment. I said something like “Good to see you again, Mr. Jones (not his real name).” He said “Go ahead and call me Dick (his real name).” I wanted to say “that suits you” but I didn’t, because he still scared me. You know how scary he was? He had ginger hair, thick black eyebrows and a white beard. That just ain’t right.

I was thinking about this again today because I read yet another news article about an educator who went too far. Dick played a big role in my childhood; thinking back, he might have been our gym teacher, too. Or maybe he taught French. I just remember that we spent time with him every day for years, no matter who our teacher was. I was kind of a rotten kid, but really, Dick went too far on a lot of occasions:

1. He used to slap me on the back of the head if he thought I wasn’t listening.
2. He had a bad habit of reaching into his plaid polyester pants and scratching his balls when nobody was looking. I notice this kind of stuff. That’s why I’m Weathereye.
3. He accused me of sneaking into the movie being shown in the gym, and hauled me out, so it was years before I got to see the end of The Shaggy D.A. Thinking back, I might have snuck in.
4. He once dragged me to the office by the ear — by the EAR — because I wouldn’t stop pretending to be a robot.
5. When I drew on the carpet with crayon in first grade, he made me try to lick it clean. I am not making that up. He was quite the asshole.
6. I was getting my Grade 2 ass kicked by three Grade 5 guys, and his solution was to put us all in boxing gloves and have us fight it out, three against one. I probably mouthed off, and I probably deserved it.
7. He had us fight it out, three against one, on the stage in the gym, in front of the whole school. They got to miss class to watch me defend myself against three bigger kids.
8. They kicked my ass and cleaned my clock, and he was laughing.
9. One day in Grade 4, I decided to sneak home at lunchtime because I didn’t like my lunch and wanted the leftover pizza I knew was in the fridge. Once I got there, I decided to just stay home. Dick came to my house. He came to my farkin’ house. I hid under the bed, and fell asleep, and my mother found me later. She was pretty mad that I ate the pizza.
10. I had a bad rash in an embarrassing place, and he made me drop my pants in the office before agreeing to let me go to the nurse. I should note that this was an open-concept early 70s school, and the office was in full view of the entire world. People still remember this.

Anyway, this was the 1970s. These assholes could get away with that. They can’t anymore. And while I sometimes bemoan the fact that kids today live without fear of their adults, Dick went too far. I think a lot of my issues can be traced back to that asshole.

Today’s Moron: Great Tey Primary School

I would like to be able to go a few days without reading news coverage of a school scandal. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. Whether it’s bad-apple teachers souring the dedicated efforts of their non-moron colleagues, or administrators who put the school’s needs ahead of the students’, it seems something stinky happens almost every day.

Look, I don’t even go near the endless parade of teacher-on-student romance cases we hear about. I would have to launch a whole new Weather Station for that. Weather Station Sick? I don’t want to do that.

I just read about another rotten case (right after dropping my kids off at school), this time in Colchester, Essex, England. The facts are clear: a seven-year-old girl was tied to a schoolyard fence by several older boys and whipped with a skipping rope. She suffered injuries. The school told her parents that “an incident” had occurred, but did not elaborate further, citing privacy issues. The lunch supervisor, who found and comforted the girl, took it upon herself to tell her parents what had happened, and she was fired for breaching the school’s confidentiality.

Outrageous.

First of all, the school failed this child by not protecting her from older kids. Secondly, the school failed this family by closing ranks, rather than dealing with the problem. Were the boys disciplined? We’ll likely never know. And we don’t need to. The victim’s parents, though, have the right to see the outcome of this attack on their little girl.

The girl’s father, Scott David, has gone very public with this story, and has launched a campaign to have the lunch supervisor, Carol Hill, reinstated. Meanwhile, he’s yanked his kids from Great Tey and found them a quality school. Hill is gone. The David kids are gone. The bullies are still in class.

In a statement, Great Tey Primary School claimed its priority is to provide “the best possible education” for the children entrusted to its care each day. I have to call bullshit on that one. This school’s priority seems to be providing the best possible protection for itself, and if a little girl gets hurt along the way, fire the one person who dared do something about it.

UPDATE: There may be more to the school’s reasoning than originally stated. And this allegation makes the school sound even worse.

UPDATE 2: Nov. 29, 2009 — School governors uphold Carol Hill’s dismissal. Stupid.

Update 3: Jan. 16, 2010: The Lunch Lady speaks.

Update 4: Jan. 7, 2011: It took this long for common sense to prevail.

Today’s Moron: Alexandra Kralik

Sorry, make that Alexandra Kralik, the Broward School District and the Broward Teachers’ Union. Kralik, a kindergarten teacher, scores high on my angerometer because she has a habit of using physical force on the five-year-olds in her classroom. Her employer and her union score high because they keep letting it happen.

Check out this news article about Kralik, and this one, too. Read them closely: she has been caught six times, at different schools, but she keeps returning to the classroom. Why? Because unlike real life, a history of violence doesn’t matter. In this Florida school district, getting caught slamming a child’s head into a counter means you can come back to teaching once you read a letter they send you.

Here’s Steve Rossi, her union’s lawyer, in one of those articles: “Each case is looked at independently, and this case is looked at independently. Anything concerning any prior incidents doesn’t apply; everything has to be looked at independently.”

What? A teacher’s long history of hurting students doesn’t matter? How does that work? Oh, here’s how it works: she keeps getting teaching jobs, and kids keep being her victims. While honest parents are being railroaded by overzealous child-protection authorities, people in positions of trust keep getting away with it, because the system lets them.

Kralik was escorted out of her classroom a few days ago after yet another allegation of abuse, and is now working for the school board in a non-classroom position. Based on the policies of her employer and the rigorous defence mounted by her union, it looks like she might have to take a year off before she’s back in the classroom. And maybe also pay a $100 fine.

This is stupid and ridiculous. And where are the police? Children are assaulted and the perpetrator receives a written reprimand from her employer? Children come first, people. That’s clearly not the attitude at the Broward School District.

If I were a parent with kids in that system, my kids would not be at that school today. Or ever again. And if I had a kid in Kralik’s class, I’d be on the phone to the cops.