Update on Copper Mountain Day Care Pics and Sentencing of Teacher Carrie McCandless
Police declined to file charges against two Copper Mountain ski area daycare workers after they determined that child abuse involving sexually explicit photographs were unfounded. The photographs weren’t sexually suggestive or taken for sexual gratification.
The workers at the Pumpkin Patch Day Care Center took photos of a naked infant’s bottom, another baby flipping the bird, and a baby pretending to smoke a cigarette.
Bottom line - acting stupid does not amount to criminal behavior.
However, being lecherous does. Teacher Carrie McCandless, the poster girl for female teacher-male student affairs, will avoid prison after pleading guilty to lesser charges.
McCandless will get 45 days in jail and five years’ probation for pleading guilty to unlawful sexual contact with then 17-year-old Tommy Clay. (Remember, Tommy was the victim who appeared on the TODAY Show).
She also got deferred sentences for pleading guilty to tampering with physical evidence and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Finally, she will have to register as a sex offender for 10 years.
Tommy and his family agreed with the plea bargain deal. I understand that they want to put this behind them now that they had their chance to speak on national TV. Yet, don’t you think the sentence should have been harsher, like a few years in jail?
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Copper Mountain, Pumpkin Patch Day Care Center, sexual abuse, naked pictures, child abuse, day care center, Carrie McCandless, teacher-student affair, Tommy Clay, TODAY Show
April 25th, 2007 at 10:07 am
The point is to scour the national news for teachers who happen to be criminal and/or immoral and showcase them?
With all due respect, what’s your problem? You could take any group of professionals and do exactly the same thing.
If you want to do kids a favor and point out people who prey on them, try uncles, stepdads, mother’s boyfriends, fathers - obviously that’s grossly unfair too since most such people aren’t predators, but after counseling for 23 years in the public schools, I assure you from making reports to child protective services that as a group, partners of moms are humongously more of a danger to kids than teachers. I’m 100% sure crime stats would bear this out and that as a group teachers are above average in being law abiding citizens.
In my 23 years I never once had to file a protective services report on a teacher and had zero personal experience/knowledge of any criminal/teacher. And believe me, I would most certainly have filed such a report if any child had ever disclosed anything inappropriate to me about a colleague. Not only would I have felt it was my absolute duty but would have been required to by law as a mandated reporter.
Abusing children was the last thing on my mind or any of my colleagues.
I read your disclaimer at the beginning - “Thank goodness for teachers” etc. - but it doesn’t counter the grossly unfair effect of these posts.
Ever consider having a “teacher hero” or “good teacher” post at least once a month?
Take a look at my current post for a sample of a day in the life of a typical group of teachers who were not “sickos.”
April 25th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Paul, if you don’t like the blog, don’t read it. And if you want to see all the bad things parents do, see Parents Behaving Badly at http://www.parentsbehavingbadly.com.
The purpose of this blog IS to showcase these predators and warn parents about them. There are other websites and news outlets that praise teachers, from the schools on up. If that’s what people want to read, the info is out there.
However, parents have to be on the look for teachers, coaches, instructors, et al who are up to no good, and who bully, molest, steal, etc. In a few days I’ll be highlighting a pedophile who taught near my own home, someone who kept teaching after his arrest. Someone who I nearly sent my own child to. It would have been nice to know this guy was out there and that he had been arrested before I considered sending my kid to his school.
Another point of this blog is about keeping your kids safe, talking to them about “good touch, bad touch,” taking them seriously when they say someone did something to them, and trusting your gut when something “funny” is going on, and understanding about how pedophiles use the internet to get their victims.
And I’m glad to hear that you never had to report a teacher. Unfortunately in the short time I was on a board of a charter school, I saw the nonsense that was going on with a couple of our teachers. They were nice folks and weren’t molesting kids, but they sure were up to no good and used really poor judgement. Luckily, the principal fired them/asked them to resign/didn’t rehire them. Maybe you should check out some of the sexual abuse blogs and see all the nice thing teachers did to those people.
And if this affecting good teachers out there. I doubt it since I report only on teachers who have been arrested and/or convicted, and reported in the traditional media (TV outlets, newspapers, etc.) Good teachers - the majority out there - have nothing to fear.
April 25th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Anne Marie, I didn’t know you had another blog. Looks like you’re keeping busy like me. Good job!
cwbybrick