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Tuesday
February 2010
9
Community Blogs
Kim is 34 years old, married for 16 years with three kids that all attend West Allis/West Milwaukee Schools. She was born and raised in New Berlin, but spent most of her time as a child in West Allis with her grandpa. After getting married, she stayed in West Allis for three years, went away for four years, and returned to West Allis for the past 8 years. Her hope with this blog is to raise awareness of what is happening, the good and the bad, within the school district.
Theft in our Schools
My focus this week is on theft in our schools. My son contacted me last week and informed me that his $80 Nike shoes were stolen from him in gym class. He set them down, turned to his locker, turned around again and they were gone. Luckily for him he had an extra pair in his locker, unlucky for him he didn't tell the gym teacher right away!
His gym class is at 9:30AM and he finally reported it to one of the asst. principal's at Noon. Needless to say the VP told my son go back to the lockers, look in them and if they are not there, well that is that. I requested to speak to the asst. principal. 45 minutes later he called me back and told me he could do nothing because my son waited too long to report it. After some arguing and threatening to inform the West Allis Police Department, the asst. principal said he would do what he could but also stated I was over reacting to the situation!
After school my son called and informed me that HE found the shoes on another students feet. This students locker was right behind his. The other student tried saying he bought the Nike's at Walmart, funny i don't remember EVER seeing Nike's at Walmart! My son was able to note special marks on the shoes and got them back.
After speaking with some other parents, I found this situation to be a common occurence. Also to find that schools don't do much in lines of trying to solve the problem. When I spoke to the asst. principal later in the day, he tried implying that it was my son's fault the shoes had been stolen. The other student claiming that my son left them out during the full class period. That is not like my son with thos shoes, I swear they are his life! Besides, isn't stealing wrong?
Now the other students will be receiving some consquences for this situation,however I am legally not allowed to know what that is. How can that be right? My son was a victim to a crime and we have rights to know what is going on with the other student. The situation will be turned over to the police officer that works in the school and he will decide if theft charges should be brought on to the student. Once again, isn't that OUR decision?
My son was a victim of a theft crime and the school is telling us we have no rights in seeing how the other student gets punished. My belief is nothing will happen to the student and we will never be told what happened to the stealing student. This also makes me wonder how many other theft cases have been dismissed because parents don't fight the schools. I know Central has a huge theft problem and it is reported to the police and is in the police blotter. However, Hale keeps theirs under wrap and few cases are reported to the police, but Hale has a theft problem as well.
I had a similar situation happen to me in 9th grade, way back in the stone age. I had one of the first of those newfangled LED wristwatches and I wore it everywhere. I even wore it while playing pickup games of football in my back yard with the neighborhood kids. Well, during one of those games, I lost the watch. My 8th grade neighbors and I spend about 10 minutes looking for it, but it couldn't be found. That was on a Sunday afternoon.
The following Monday morning, I asked a friend of mine who was in the same homeroom as the suspected thief if he would let me know if the watch was on this kid's wrist. It was!
I called the other school where my 8th grade neighbors went and pretended to be his dad (I had a fairly deep voice and fairly convincing adult mannerisms even back then), told him the story, and told him to pass the word around that we were going to confront the 9th grade punk who stole my watch. We confronted the punk after school at the bus stop and threatened to beat the snot out of him unless he returned the watch. He did, under the threat of a beating. The punk didn't steal anything from me ever again. See, the threat of force works wonders.
Tell you son the next time it happens that he should call all his buddies on their cell phones to arrange a little 'meeting' with the thief to scare the h_ll out of him. Don't bother calling the Principal or the cops, because as you have seen with your own two eyes, the authorities won't even let you know the consequences of this thief's actions. If your kids THREATEN to smack this kid around a bit, it'll probably do the trick. Tell your kid and his friends to just push the punk around a bit. I never threw any punches in my particular incident, but I definitely did get in the kid's face until he forked over the watch that he stole from me. It worked like a charm.
Unfortunately your hunch about nothing being done is probably right. What usually happens in these situations is the threat of a ticket being issued by the school officer unless the kid is an angel the rest of the school year (sad but true, I've seen it happen before). The kid usually isn't an angel but usually doesn't get a ticket either. As a cynical person I suspect the kids parents would probably pay the ticket for him anyways.
Theft is a crime of opportunity (most of the time) and the best we can do is remind our kids not to take anything of value to school with them and if they do make sure to keep a close eye on it and lock their stuff up.
Its probably a school district policy. I know even in daycares, if a kid is bitten, hit, etc, the day care is not allowed to tell the parent of the child who was bitten what kid it was. They say its for fear of retaliation by the parent.
I would hoping calling the police would teach this kid a lesson. But next time, I would also say, don't let your kid take the $80 shoes to school unless he is never taking them off his feet.
What's the difference between this kid stealing from a store and stealing from your son? That's a darn shame that just because it happened in school the police don't do more. Had he been caught stealing from a store he would have to pay the store restitution along with a ticket from the cops. This kid needs to spend the night in juvenile detention so he can feel what it's like to be locked up. Maybe that will scare him and maybe not.
As far as what Stubborn Old Man is suggesting lets be realistic. Kids carry weapons now a day. You never know who has a gun. This kid may be in or hanging around with gang members. Your kid could get his friends to help rough him up but this other kid could also get his. Then what? Back in the stone age days that solution may have worked but not anymore.
Tell that to the kids that Anthony Stancl from New Berlin convinced to send them nude pictures of themselves.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/39091967.html
This hooks right back to Michael James' blog about respect. So many kids lack respect for each other these days -- cause their parents don't teach it to them.
First, let's get this straight. I made a terrible mistake. I have to pay the consequences of my decision for stealing your son's shoes, and that includes a hefty $540 fine to the WAPD, a visit to the Municipal Court in front of Judge Paul Murphy, who I know quite well. I AM SORRY! It was a poor decision on my part. I saw the shoes on the floor after your son left for gym. YES, your son left for gym with the shoes STILL on the floor. It was an opportunity for me to have a nice pair of shoes and I took the opportunity. It was wrong of me. I am grateful that your son got his shoes back and that he did not have his friends and others go after me. To "STUBBORN OLD MAN," you're just an old bully and I am sure our school would deal with pieces of crap like you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for actually suggesting that someone should beat the crap out of someone, just because they did this in "your time."
Now, I don't have it easy. This is not an excuse for what I did. I made a poor decision. I will have to live the community consequences, which are severe. My assistant principal has been very fair and extremely stern in dealing with me in this matter.
Once again, I do apologize for what I did. To Mrs. Cameron, please get the story straight before you blog because sometimes you can get the wrong message out to people and make others look bad when they really shouldn't look bad at all.
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