Jan - He hasn't been charged but he might plead guilty. Yeah. We wondered, too.
March - He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to - four hours in jail.
They are so brutal in Indiana.
Jan 2, 2008 - Fishers High School Principal Scott Syverson was stopped Dec 22nd for drunk driving. He admitted he had five beers. He tested over twice the legal limit on a portable breath test. He failed other tests as well.
However, they did not arrest him. In a videotape of the stop, Syverson called the officer's boss during the stop and handed his phone to the cop. On the tape the officer says "I know everybody makes mistakes but I'm not very happy about this right now." Syverson also told the officer "You put me in a bad spot here." [You can see the video of the traffic stop online at the news story or YouTube.]
Reportedly, Syverson is considering entering a guilty plea. The Hamilton Southeastern School Board will be meeting in special executive session on Friday to look at the matter and possibly decide on the principal's fate.
TT - In addition, the officer was ordered to take Syverson home and pick up Syverson's wife and drive her back to pick up the car. There's probably a good reason why the board or the court will not act. Read this letter to the Indianapolis Star.
SUSPENDED Jan 5 - The school board suspended him with pay. He will continue to receive his $3,100 paycheck twice a month.
[Thank you, taxpayers. Be sure to read the sidebar to the left to see the rigamarole a school district must go through to fire and educator. With all the appeals, it will probably cost upwards of $190,000 just to fire him, judging by other stories we have seen. In the long run, they won't. It's cheaper to pay him for the rest of his contract. This ensures that he can get another job somewhere else. But we wouldn't count on them doing either. ]
Fishers High School senior class president Mike Dunn said he and other students hope to gather more signatures on a petition of support for Syverson that was part of the board’s review Friday.[There are 320 comments at the story. Not a lot of them sounded like they would sign Dunn's petition. Our favorite one-liner: "If he is thought to be responsible enough to manage a 2,000 student high school, he should not need a babysitter during his social outings."
To which we might add, hopefully, the same people will remember the episode when it comes time to vote again for their school board members. You get what you vote for.]
Jan 26 - The 15-day limit for suspended Fishers High School principal Scott Syverson to request a hearing to oppose a termination of his contract has passed, and Hamilton Southeastern Schools officials are positioned to vote when they meet Feb. 7.
Syverson resigned his job at Fishers High School Feb. 7 after the Hamilton Southeastern School board stripped him of his duties and placed him on indefinite suspension following the traffic stop incident.
GUILTY PLEA & SENTENCING (Sorta, if you consider 4 hours in jail a sentence.) March 12 - Syverson pleaded guilty Tuesday to operating a vehicle while intoxicated and endangering a person as part of an agreement with prosecutors. Hamilton Superior Court Judge J. Richard Campbell sentenced him to one year in jail but ordered him to serve most of the sentence on probation.
"The defendant is to report to the Hamilton County Jail on March 11, 2008 at 8 p.m., to be released at 12:01 a.m.,said the written order"
