Guilty of child endangerment. Her lawyer: She lost her job, was refused an interview, and was expected to lose her teacher's license.
April 29, 2008 - Cindy Zimmerly, 38, a special education teacher at Northeast Elementary School, was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment for leaving her three children - ages ages 5, 3 and 1 — in a mini-van while she was shopping in a Wal-Mart store.
Zimmerly returned to the vehicle with purchases after about half an hour, then left again for about 20 minutes.
The Pottawattamie County Attorney’s office is considering formal charges. Zimmerly is scheduled to appear in court later this week.
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Northeast Elementary is a Kindergarten through 3rd grade school which is a part of the Glenwood Community School District. Glenwood is a southwest Iowa town approximately 30 miles southeast of Omaha, Nebraska. - From their web site.
She's not the first teacher to, OOPS, - forget the children.
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CHARGES WILL BE FILED May 4 - Assistant Pottawattamie County Attorney Amy Zacharias said Friday that three charges of child endangerment will be filed by the time of Cindy Zimmerly's preliminary hearing in early June. She has been placed on administrative leave.
GUILTY August 29 - Zimmerly has been found guilty of three counts of child endangerment. Zimmerly didn't contest testimony given in the case, which is similar to a no-contest plea in Nebraska. Two of the three counts will be dismissed at sentencing, said Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilber.
Zimmerly's attorney has said that as a result of the charges she lost her job, was refused an interview for another job and was expected to lose her teacher's certificate.She will be sentenced in late September.
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ONLINE RESOURCE: You can check the current status of a teacher's license online here.
Teacher discipline decisions are not summarized or searchable. The state Board of Educational Examiners minutes contain teacher discipline actions but provide no reason for the actions. link
See June 2008 minutes PDF
