A teacher's assistant was sentenced to six months in jail this week for stealing lunch money from a disabled student at Camarillo High School.
Kristen Rene Santoyo, 37, was also given four years probation during a hearing Tuesday before Ventura County Superior Court Judge James Cloninger. In addition, Santoyo was ordered to pay $285 restitution to the student and to attend at least one year of weekly child abuse counseling sessions.
The victim, a 14-year-old high school freshman who suffers from severe autism and cannot speak, was sent to school with a lunch box that had snacks and $5 to purchase a cafeteria meal, prosecutors said. After she came home from school hungry and went straight to the refrigerator multiple times, her parents grew suspicious and contacted the school principal and teacher.
But wait. At least Kristen had a good excuse:
Defense attorney James Harmon argued that Santoyo suffered from a drug abuse problem that resulted in bad judgment.
School officials said Santoyo, who worked for the district for about 12 years, was fingerprinted and underwent a background check before she was hired in 1996.
So basically nobody at Camarillo High School was watching Santoyo perform her duties where her judgment was so bad that she would steal from an autistic student?
Then there's this:
The coach of a North County traveling girls softball team has been arrested on suspicion of having sex with a 17-year-old player.
Christopher Facione of Carlsbad is charged with two felony counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. Facione is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Superior Court.
Facione, 37, is the founder of The Next Level Athletics, an Encinitas-based sports organization for athletes 6 and up. In addition to the girls softball team, the organization has offered clinics and camps in other sports such as football and basketball.
On Jan. 18, the declaration says, Facione spoke with the player, whose doctor thought she might have contracted a sexually transmitted disease. Facione assured her that he routinely gets tested, the declaration says.
Oh. That must have been reassuring. Of course it's kind of sad that with a dirtbag like him coaching, that the players are the ones who should be tested. But check this out...after giving her an ejaculatory germ:
Facione sent the girl text messages, including one saying he missed her and asking her out to dinner, according to the declaration.
As my three or four readers probably know by now, I coach high school girls basketball. I went through an extremely rigorous background check. It's creeps like these two that make my job more difficult...and worse, gives parents cause and pause to consider everyone who works with their children.
4 comments:
I live in a county that is most often ran by democrats. One particular representative is repeatedly re-elected, yet she led the fight to disallow background checks for school employees. WTF? Regardless of your party affiliation, this is a common sense issue.
Ugh.
Please bear in mind Coach Facione has only been ACCUSED at this time. The player making the accusations was recently cut from the team.
As a high school basketball coach, how would you feel if a player that you cut from your team turned around and accused you of sexually molesting her? You'd be arrested, thrown in jail, spend tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees, bail money, etc. and end up with your coaching career in shambles. Then on top of all that, you'd have idiot bloggers like yourself mouthing off without a care in the world as to what the true facts of the case may be.
Best of luck in your coaching career!
Thanks for clarifying, Softball Dad. However, the coach has not just been "accused", he's been arrested. (True, he has not been convicted)
The scenario you describe of a disgruntled teen accusing me of this kind of crime terrifies me...but only a little. Why? Because I take extreme precautions to make sure I am not put in a situation where I could even be accused.
You call me an "idiot blogger", but I know something about this topic. And this coach should not be around teen girls if he is engaging in such communication as text messaging with the purpose of asking one of his players to dinner. If in fact no such text message occurred, I'll post a full apology and retraction and remove the original post.
But it seems that the police have such a text message. Oops.
What happened to teachers and coaches...anyone with authority over kids...holding themselves completely above reproach? As a Softball "Dad" don't you insist on it?
There are guidelines that I insist the players and parents know ahead of time. Here, read this:
http://thisgoesto11.blogspot.com/2007/06/dirtbag-track-coach-preys-on.html
I went to Camarillo High School at the time Chad Pridgen was a chemistry teacher and tennis coach - while he was molesting the students back in 2000. I actually had him for Chem AP but transferred into the class of another teacher because he was a weirdo and I wasn't getting anywhere in his class (nor any help).
My sister was a freshman when he was arrested and when I found out, it gave me the creeps because I had such close contact with him. Now I have heard numerous accounts of teachers and/or students being arrested, drugs, scandal, blah blah blah. It doesn't surprise me. For a school that actually RENTED trees to enhance the campus during Blue Ribbon/California distinguished school election time... you can only put up a facade for so long before the true colors come out...
I'm not saying it's entirely the schools fault. I think in general the quality of people in this world is diminishing by the second - and the majority of us do nothing but stand back and gawk and write stupid posts like these.
It's funny how we as a society are all appalled and can't believe this is happening - but that NONE of us are willing to take responsibility to help these individuals. We have an attitude that says, "Oh, I can't be bothered with this, it's not my problem." And that's exactly why our society keeps getting worse.
It's sad, but people in general are selfish.
Post a Comment