Teacher Carmen Belen Harden Charged with Embezzlement and Theft
Here at Teacher Smackdown, I like finding stories about teachers stealing. It certainly beats teachers having affairs with their teenage students, or feeling up kindergarteners…sigh.
In Cumberland, Maryland, Carmen Belen Harden, 35, was charged with embezzlement and theft. She was arrested at her home on a warrant and posted a $20,000 bond later that day.
The investigation began in June when the county board of education notified the Cumberland Police Department that a teacher was embezzling funds.
It wasn’t until now that the arrest could be made since the investigation took a long time (police had to go through piles of paperwork and had to interview many people.) Eventally they discovered that Harden, who served as an adviser to several student groups, was stealing from those organizations. They found that she had taken about $10,000 from student groups at Allegany and Westmar High Schools.
Harden is no longer teaching, but the board of education refuses to give the press any more information on what she taught or how long she had been working in the school district.
This is pretty sad for the kids, and I hope there is some sort of liability insurance that gets them back their fundraising money. (Or maybe Harden will have to pay restitution.) However, you have to blame the school district and high schools for letting one teacher oversee these student groups without any oversight by the principal or other staff member like a school secretary or bookkeeper.
It’s so tempting for someone who has access to all that money - donations, payments for field trips, purchases of yearbooks or prom tickets, and fundraisers - to take the money thinking they won’t be discovered. Yes, eventually they get caught, but by then the money is gone and the kids lose out.
Carmen Belen Harden, embezzlement and theft, teachers who steal
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