October 31, 2008 - Billings Senior High School teacher Stacey Rambold, 49, has been charged with three counts of felony sexual intercourse without consent. (She was not 16, which is the age of consent in Montana. And Rambold was three years older.) He resigned in July after the district found evidence to support the allegations. Rambold also agreed to surrender his Montana teaching certificate.
Prosecutors allege in charging documents filed Friday that Rambold performed oral and digital sex acts on a ninth-grade female student over the course of several months, including one instance in his school office. The incidents are alleged to have happened between October and December of last year when the girl was 14 years old, the affidavit states. She turned 15 in February.
The eight-page affidavit describes a police investigation that included numerous interviews with teachers and students at Senior High. One teacher told police that several of her students told her in mid-April they suspected Rambold and the girl of having an inappropriate relationship. The teacher said the students reported that Rambold was "never in the classroom during class," and Rambold and the girl were often alone together in his office during class.
It wasn't until April 24 that the girl told a church group leader that she had been sexually assaulted by a teacher, according to court records. The church member told the girl's mother, who then called police.
Ramold has not been arrested but will be issued a notice to appear in court on the charges, said Deputy County Attorney Rod Souza.
Full Name: Stacey Dean Rambold
ARRESTED November 1, 2008 - Rambold was arrested Friday, booked in the Yellowstone County jail and released after posting $25,000 bail, Deputy County Attorney Rod Souza said. He will likely be arraigned Nov. 10
Friday, October 31, 2008
Billings, MONTANA
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Billings, MONTANA
Arrested in 2006, he's only now going to go to jail.
Apr 11, 2007 - Paul Patek, 39, a Will James Middle School counselor, who was arrested last October for peeping into a bathroom window at the home of a former student, resigned effective at the end of the school year.
He will continue to be on paid leave until then. (He has been on paid leave since his arrest.)
Patek was arrested Oct. 3 after a call from a woman reporting a prowler outside. When police officers arrived, they found Patek with a video camera standing on a child's desk outside the woman's bathroom window. One of the woman's children was a former student of Patek.
In February, Patek pleaded no contest in to charges of prowling and surreptitious visual observation. He was sentenced, but has since appealed the jail time, arguing that the judge failed to consider that Patek was suffering from the side-effects of an anti-depression medication. He also argues that the judge did not give him credit for the five days he spent in jail after his arrest, and unfairly imposed the sentence based on his economic or social status when she referenced his counseling degrees and said he violated a position of trust. The judge agreed to stay his sentence while the case is under appeal."
State law requires Copps to report Patek's resignation to the Montana State Board of Education, which may decide to pull Patek's teacher and counseling certificate upon review of the circumstances. [TT - the "may" part is scarey. On the other hand, this is the very first Montana arrest since we started this blog last October.]
SENTENCED From the Independent Record, Apr 7, 2007: The judge sentenced Patek to six months in the county jail with all but 30 days suspended on the surreptitious observation charge. The judge added a six-month suspended jail sentence for the prowling charge, and she ordered Patek to follow treatment recommendations from a psychosexual evaluation.
[TT - you can check on the status of Patek's credentials here.]
SENTENCE APPEALED May 25 - Patek's lawyer appealed the sentence, arguing that the city judge did not consider mitigating factors such as the antidepressant medication Patek was taking after the deaths of several family members and friends. He also claimed that the sentencing judge failed to consider his lack of a criminal record. The appeal was rejected by a District Court judge.
MOTION TO WITHDRAW PLEA Update Sept 18 -Patek appeared Tuesday in Billings Municipal Court before Judge Mary Jane Knisely for what was scheduled as a sentencing hearing following a District Court judge's rejection in May of Patek's appeal. But Patek arrived with a new attorney and a recently filed motion asking that he be allowed to withdraw one of his no-contest pleas.
SENTENCED May 24, 2008 - Patek was sentenced to 30 days in jail - not prison - after the judge -imposed a 30-day jail sentence. On May 14th, the judge rejected the motion to withdraw his visual observation plea. He argued he could not be punished twice for what was essentially the same charge.
As of June 18, 2008, his license is still active.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Transferring Teachers
Can you imagine how much it cost to try to transfer teachers in this school district?
We're betting it was A LOT.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Billings, MONTANA
Sept 12, 2007 - Koby Murray, 41, a reading specialist and special education teacher at West High School, was arrested and is facing a felony charge of fraudulently obtaining dangerous drugs.She was arrested at a local pharmacy when pharmacy personnel became suspicious.
Sept 12 - Murray appeared in court via a video link from the jail. She was ordered to appear for arraignment and released without bond. She is on paid leave.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Butte, MONTANA
You can't fire me! I'm a teamster.
August 31, 2007 - A school administrator in Butte, Montana was fired in 2005. Since then, an arbitrator has ordered the school to reinstate her, and now a judge has ordered the same thing.
The Butte school district is the only district in the state whose administrators are unionized. Cannon is represented by the Teamsters' Union.
At issue is the fact that she claims she still has tenure after becoming an administrator. The district maintains that Cannon's tenure ceased when she became an administrator.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Pryor, MONTANA
We are thinking Major Screwup must be in charge of the district.
May 16, 2007 - Darrell Left Hand, 31, Plenty Coups High School head track coach was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault in an incident Friday after a track meet in Billings. He had been drinking and got into an argument in a bar. Two track team members returning to Pryor with the coaches were waiting in the van in the parking lot of the bar during the incident.
According to Carbon County Sheriff Thomas Rieger, Left Hand allowed one of the students, who did not have a driver's license, to drive the school van earlier in the day.
IT GETS WORSE
Police discovered that Left Hand was convicted in federal court in 2000 of simple assault on a child under age 16.
Left Hand's criminal record would have prohibited him from being hired two years ago by the Pryor School District, but Superintendent Luke Enemy Hunter said he did not know that Left Hand had been convicted of a crime against a child.In addition to his position as head track coach, Left Hand is a teacher's aide and worked with a special-needs student at Pryor Elementary.
Left Hand was also convicted of involuntary manslaughter after a 1995 drunken-driving accident that killed a passenger in his car, also a conviction Enemy Hunter said he was unaware of.
Enemy Hunter said the district requires a background check on all certified staff as part of the hiring process. But, because Left Hand was not a certified teacher, a background check was not done.
TT - Plenty Coups High School rates a 1 at Greatschools.com
The state average for Math was 54% in 2006. Plenty Coups High School = 12% in 2006. The state average for Reading was 75% in 2006. Plenty Coups High School = 24%
"Separate but equal schools" was a concept that died in the 1960s. What is the excuse for condemning 79 students in this school to such appallingly low standards?