Former Teacher Sentenced Today

It’s all over the local news by now, but one of our former teachers and advisors was sentenced today for grand larceny. The former teacher advised several student activities and coached during his years at GCS. During that time he managed to short our student activity accounts to the tune of at least $81,000. This happened a couple of years ago, was found by our central treasurer, Susan Rebmann, and confirmed by our own business office and outside auditors.

This all came to light in the first year that Sue and I were here, the 2004-2005 school year, so you can see that this man’s sentencing was a long time in coming. I’m happy he’s sitting in the county jail today instead of the story running on America’s Most Wanted. Thanks to the efforts of the NYS police and our own SRO, Jennifer Alessi, he was arrested when he returned to the area for a different court case in December. He’s been in jail since then and remains there after sentencing today, completing his 6 months of jail time which will be followed by 5 years of probation. The restitution issue will remain in the courts for some time. He will never teach in New York state again.

This has been a complex issue for many of our former students as they admired their teacher, advisor, coach.  I should say that they still do admire him as several students have continued to show their support of Gill. I think this support shows one of two things, probably depending on the person. One, the support can show that all of us are multifaceted individuals, bringing both good and bad to the table. Members of our school community who continued to support the former teacher must continually look to the good that they find in him. Two, the support may show that it’s easier to assume the school district was at fault than to admit to being duped by someone. Either way, each individual is entitled to judge the former teacher based on his or her own knowledge of the man.

While there are lots of reasons to justify, debate, argue or fault his actions, for me, the main injustice has always been that he took advantage of the very students for whom he was entrusted to care. Every day, we can find students working hard in our community at part time minimum wage jobs to pay for the many expenses of the junior and senior school years. Working at Jubilee or Rite Aid or one of our fast food restaurants to save up enough money to pay for the prom,  senior dinner dance, the senior trip, and yearbook. I hate that those same hard working kids paid more for many of those things than they otherwise would have because the fundraising events that they were also working hard on didn’t supplement the costs. Their trusted advisor and teacher instead pocketed tens of thousands of dollars, at the expense of those students. I find that reprehensible. That’s personal. It affected every student who fund-raised, bought a yearbook, paid for athletic gear, went to the senior dinner dance.

That’s why I’m glad he’ll never teach again, that he continues to sit in jail, that he’s paying the consequences of his actions. That’s why it was worth my time this morning to travel to Olean, to sit in the court room, to wait to hear the sentencing. For every student who couldn’t be there, I was, to hear him be held accountable. For every member of our community who bought a ticket to a spaghetti dinner thinking it was in support of our kids, but was really supporting this teacher, I was there to hear the consequences.

7 Comments
  1. Hi Kimberly

    I just wanted to make sure that you were invited to our education “Blogger Summit”. We hope you can make it and feel free to share this invitation with any other bloggers in the area that might be interested. The invitation is attached below.

    Alex
    ED In ’08 Blogger Summit

    ——————————–

    Strong American Schools is excited to announce the ED in ’08 Blogger Summit. Conference details are as follows:

    May 14th – 15th
    Palomar Hotel, Washington DC
    Registration is Free!

    An opening reception is scheduled on the evening of Wednesday, May 14th. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be served before the screening of a new documentary film on education, Two Million Minutes. A Q&A session with the filmmakers is set to follow.

    Then join us for an all-day conference on May 15th. Nowhere else will you have an opportunity to meet and network with fellow education bloggers, participate in panels, attend workshops, and help tackle some tough questions on the state of education in America.

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    Register at http://edin08.com/bloggersummit/

  2. It is very disheartening when a trusted member of an educational team does something unethical and illegal. It goes beyond the legal troubles and touches the emotions and sense of trust of the organization. As educators we try to have trust in our students, and by our very nature we’re more trusting than people in other fields. Perhaps it’s the “the glass is half-full” optimism that we must have to do the jobs we do. Working to rebuild the sense of trust that was lost will take time and a bit of effort; and hopefully someday the hurt will be healed.

  3. In my district, they are finger-printing every single staff employee; there are over 10,000 teachers.
    As a mom of a high-schooler, I thank you for taking the time to post.

  4. I’m glad you were able to see justice done. We have a teacher who after many objections to her ways of humiliating her students – including cutting their hair against their will- was found guilty of a felony misdemeanor. It seems she indulged in a little road rage against a student. Her sentence – she cannot teach in any other district BUT she can continue to teach in ours.
    She’s able to put on musicals, etc. and so is staying because of that ability. It looks like she’s teaching a lesson in civics to alll of us.

  5. Hopefully, your district experience will be a learning tool for future administrators. I am working toward becoming a public school administrator and know the importance of checks and balances and fiduciary responsibility. I have always shared the phrase, “Policy upfront saves us from Police involvement later”.

    As a new blogger, I reviewed your first entries, may I ask?
    Do you still emal Ilana?

  6. I just realized you had rejoined the blogosphere. Welcome back! I’m so pleased that I’ll be able to read your thoughts regarding education again. As someone who is also making the transition from high school principal to assistant superintendent, I completely identify with your recent posts about the new role.

    I can’t imagine how hard it would be to deal with the court and sentencing processes for a former employee. I’m glad he’s paying his debt for the crime.

    Also, I’d love to hear more about the reading programs you’re piloting. Have you looked at Stephanie Harvey’s Comprehension Toolkit? These strategies are making a real difference in our district.

  7. I always feel so betrayed when I see something like this, even if it isn’t in my state. People like this give teachers a bad name and I feel the same when I hear of teachers admitting to sexual misconduct. There is no excuse that justifies lying and stealing in my book. If you have to lie about something, that should be a clue that it is wrong to do. I’m glad you were there to represent the students and the community.

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