School Security: Who’s in the classroom?
September 5, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
A Bay Area woman was sentence to seven years in prison for posing as a school volunteer or teaching assistant—-and, in one case, the sister of an autistic sibling—-to gain access to classrooms, where she stole teachers’ wallets and, in some cases, opened up credit cards under their names. It’s estimated that the woman, Tynesha West, stole about $100,000. The August 28th Contra Costa Times quotes a special education teacher who says that
West “harmed us more than the money, credit cards, gift cards and identities she stole,” a Lafayette teacher wrote. “She stole all that we stand for: working hard, playing fair and square, following the rules, kindness to others, honesty, being a good citizen — just to name a few.”
I can’t say this wouldn’t have happened at Charlie’s school. I do know that, when anyone visits his classroom for the first time, that person has to wait in the front office and is escorted to the classroom by a staff member. Anyone who’s not staff has to wear a visitor’s name tag and to sign in and out of the front office.
Always saddening to hear how someone uses autism for less than worthy ends.
Wow this is unreal. Looks like it happened in my state too. They had issues at the Elem school last year with people entering thru the parking lot and stealing purses. So we had to wait at the gate for long periods of time to get on campus.
I plan on visiting Middle School next week to get pants and find out about meal tickets. Matt has run out of class three times each day that his aide is at lunch. He did three laps around track today at 1pm for PE. Aide said he was red in face. Another aide he liked in the MR class that he saw at morning and lunch is now in his class at new school. The aide is sitting for lunch on bench at back of class so that is nice. He also took two pics of Matt on his digital camera running laps. He mentioned special olympics to me.