Friday, November 4, 2016

Schoolhouse Rock 'n' Rye

I'm not a lawyer, but I possess a certain level of common sense.  
I don't speak Yiddish, but I know chutzpah when I see it.
Finally, I've never been to Spain, but I kinda like the music...and I know better than to show up drunk at a kids' bowling alley field trip in Wisconsin.

Let's all say a big "Hello!" to Maria Caya, who used to be an elementary school teacher in Janesville, WI.  Used to be, until she showed up for the last-day-of-class field trip to the bowling alley in 2013, apparently three sheets to the wind. Stinkin' blotto, shafahzed. Drunk, OK?  She blew a 0.27 on the breathalyzer (legal limit is .08).  There were eight other adults chaperoning the strikes 'n' spares, and one of them went looking for the missing Ms Caya, ultimately finding her passed out like a mackerel in the ladies' room.

So - big surprise - the school board gleefully accepted her resignation, paying her $18,000 to get out of Dodge.  And Janesville.  They said that tieing a can to her would have cost a lot more than $18,000, and the kids have enjoyed learning from a sober replacement.

And then!  She sued the city for $5.5 million because she got all embarrassed and everything because the city police released her blood alcohol levels to a public that deserves to know how drunk its public school teachers are (or aren't.)

But again, the city decided that litigating this stupid mess would cost more than paying it off, so they shoveled another $75,000 of tax money to pay this lush off - even though there is a certain amount of debate as to whether the police acted illegally in releasing the breathalyzer data. 

Jens Jorgensen was the only one of seven Janesville City Council members to vote against the settlement. "I think that there’s a lot of things that happened that day and I would think that a judge and jury of her peers would be able to see through all of that and make the correct decision on that."

I would have wagered on that too.  After all, as Christine Nimmo, the parent of one of her former students said, "She put our children in jeopardy." 

'Nuff said. Go away and dry up.



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