Another "WTF?" story, Milwaukee kindergarden teacher still teaching even though has 4 DUI's

[Archae]

And two busts for beating kids up.

Teacher charged with drunken driving for fourth time

A kindergarten teacher has been charged with drunken driving for a fourth time.

When Town of Brookfield police on Sunday night arrested 29-year-old Danielle Cox on suspected drunken driving, it marked her fourth OWI arrest.

VIDEO: Kindergarten teacher with four OWI arrests may not lose job

She got her first OWI when she was 17 years old.

Milwaukee Public Schools confirmed that Cox is a district employee. Online records list her as working as a 4-year-old kindergarten teacher at Gilbert Stuart Elementary on the far northwest side.

In addition to the drunken driving convictions, Cox was twice convicted of battery while a student at Cedarburg High School.

According to the criminal complaints, she bashed a girl's head into a hand dryer inside a locker room, breaking her nose. And in another incident, she allegedly punched and choked a girl inside a guidance counselor's office.

http://www.wisn.com/news/mps-teacher-charged-with-drunken-driving-for-fourth-time/36884198

[Taitertots]

1. Why should you get fired for DUIs?

Should we put everyone with a DUI on a special list and block them from ever working again?

[Archae]

2. Would *YOU* trust the teacher in the article, with a 4-year old?

Not just the DUI's.

The fact she's been busted TWICE for beating kids up.

[d_r]

5. not defending her

but I wonder why her juvenile records was released. Usually you don't see records of what someone did in high school. I'm pretty sure she won't be on the job much longer.

[Taitertots]

7. Is she driving my children somewhere?

When did people start to feel like it's their personal job to punish other people who get caught breaking the law?

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. Her judgment is impaired.

That is the problem.
People who beat up on others AND drink and drive are not showing good judgment.
I would not want a person like that being in charge of my kids.

[Taitertots]

24. Are we going to start taking custody of children whose parents...

Have DUIs?

Or is this just something that only matters when it's YOUR children in a trivial (b/c she's not driving them) situation.

[whatthehey]

15. Beating kids up? Or fighting teenagers while one herself?

No indication she's a threat to kids in her classroom.

[1StrongBlackMan]

51. That's what I was thinking ...

Now if she is showing up to work drunk ... or even, hung over ... or, "beating up kids" more recently than a decade ago, that would be a different matter.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

55. Can't be a very effective teacher

constantly getting arrested. The beating kids up thing is what I'm more concerned about personally. There should be a zero tolerance policy for such behavior actually.

[RedRocco]

31. You mean like they do for pot?

[tabasco]

48. Because she clearly has extremely bad judgment and a serious alcohol problem?

Just a wild guess.

[Skittles]

49. while I agree people who receive a DUI should not be fired

(everyone deserves a second chance)

the problem here is, she is a repeat offender - four DWIs tells me she has a severe problem and is in dire need of specialized treatment......she should NOT be in charge of any children until cleans up her act

[Recursion]

52. Because 4 DUIs is as red a flag as exists for an alcohol problem?

There are actually quite a few states where your fourth has a mandatory jail term.

[PeteSelman]

3. Getting into a fight in high school isn't the same as "beating kids up".

I guess I beat up a bunch of kids too. Why do I have a job?

And the last sentence in the story tells you all you need to know.

As long as she's not driving around the classroom drunk, I don't see what one has to do with the other.

[Travis_0004]

4. she lacks good judgment

That is something that is important for a kindergarten teacher.

Plus know she has become a distraction, so its probably easier to fire her and move on.

[jberryhill]

8. Many juvenile offenders do

That's one of the reasons we call them "juveniles".

How is she as a teacher?

[Travis_0004]

36. 4 DUIs were not received as a juvenile.

[jberryhill]

38. Yeah, well, she's not the driving instructor either

[PeteSelman]

25. She might be a great teacher and beloved by her students.

While being a drunken mess in her free time. Or she might just be unlucky.

[Go Vols]

28. +1

[Travis_0004]

39. She is lucky she hasnt killed anybody yet

I would not describe 4 DUIs as unlucky.

I would describe it as reckless.

[Sanity Claws]

6. Your post is the WTF IMO

Nothing you said indicates that she is not doing her job properly. I hope someone intervenes and gets her help with her alcoholism.

[jberryhill]

9. Here's the real problem

"Online records list her as working as a 4-year-old kindergarten teacher"

Clearly she lied about her age, although I wonder why they would hire a 4-year-old teacher in the first place.

And why the hyphens?

[cwydro]

12. I know. I caught that too.

Clearly, good journalism is not valued so much anymore.

[jberryhill]

19. The real headline should be she lied about her age to get the job

[NV Whino]

20. Aside from the fact that the sentence is fucked

It is grammatically correct to use hyphens when describing someone as X-year-old. Clearly, the writer learned about hyphens, but not about sentence structure.

[treestar]

22. and driving a car at 4 years old

and drinking at 4! This person is clearly trouble!

[jberryhill]

41. Drinking at 4 isn't that bad

It's okay after noon, really. You must have grown up Baptist or something.

[treestar]

47. the English language is so easy to take two ways

I see what you did!

[Tab]

50. Not to mention

racking them all up by the time she was 4. That's some serious stuff.

[Lee-Lee]

10. On what grounds should she be fired?

Does she operate a motor vehicle as part of her duties as a student? If no, then its not material.

As long as she is able to arrange transportation so that she is reliably at work, and does not show up for work intoxicated, the school system should be making reasonable accommodations for any treatment she is seeking and that should be their only involvement.

This is why unions and due process rights are so important- people have knee jerk reactions and want to ruin careers over unrelated incidents that happen off the clock. Were she here in NC where teachers are denied collective bargaining she probably would be fired just because parents raise hell because it "looks bad".

[HereSince1628]

11. Not sure about MPS, but moral turpitude was cause for dismissal of teachers for many years

Historically communities have held teachers to behavioral standards outside the workplace. Moral turpitude basically comes down to failing to conform to a community standard. It's often about sexual behavior, but it needn't be limited to that...

This news story seems to be tapping into that tradition of outrage about teachers who fail to be role models.

[get the red out]

16. I agree completely

Unless she fails to perform her duties properly, why should she be judged in this manner?

Teachers also make local TV news, at least in my area, for things the news wouldn't waste air time on, if it weren't a "teacher".

Honestly, I don't know how teachers make it in today's world.

[HereSince1628]

35. Higher expectations for teachers has been a long pattern...

I had a contract at a university in Iowa that innumerated examples of expectations and there faculty were consequently expected to be 'friendly'.

[lindysalsagal]

43. In my state, the school couldn't touch her unless she showed up drunk or

hit a kid.

If I were an administrator, I'd keep a close eye on her, and possibly post a monitor for the children or whatever, just to have another adult in the room. But I couldn't fire her for DUI's.

[trumad]

13. Rehab---

[madville]

46. Probably already been a couple of times I bet

It only works if someone wants it to work though.

[dembotoz]

14. jv records should not count for the most part.

as an employee she should be able to get treatment

as unemployed that goes away.
treatment options for the poor and unemployed are minimal is walkers wonderland.

[Brickbat]

18. "According to state law, most non-violent felonies would not prohibit someone from being a teacher."

Sounds OK to me.

[treestar]

21. Doesn't mean she isn't a good teacher

and charged and convicted are different things.

The bashing of the head, etc., does mean she shouldn't teach, but it says alleged and criminal complaints. Innocent until proven guilty.

[LeftyMom]

23. Why is there even a record of her high school infractions 10+ years later?

Those definitely aren't relevant and shouldn't be public, and I'd assume they'd have taken a one-way trip through a shredder by now.

Doing stupid shit as a teenager isn't a good predictor of adult behavior. The part of the brain that handles complex moral judgment isn't fully developed until one's early twenties.

As for the DUIs, she's not a school bus driver. She probably needs alcohol treatment, but finding a treatment program that relies on evidence based care and not god-bothering nonsense in this country is nigh impossible.

[jberryhill]

45. Didn't they tell you about "the record that will follow you all of your life"?

[kiva]

26. DUIs?

Unless she's driving kids it doesn't matter.

The fights from high school? Unless she's still showing anger control issues, something that happened over a decade ago is irrelevant.

Why the witch hunt, I wonder?

[giftedgirl77]

27. Lol, the driver's ed teacher at my mom's school has 2.

My son's English teacher his freshman year was a raging drunk, even came to class blasted a couple of times. She would just run a movie & sleep it off.

[Jake Stern]

29. Admittedly I am biased

but it comes from dragging my elderly father out of a car that was destroyed by a drunk driver and seeing him laying on the ground, covered in blood, screaming in pain from the injuries he received.

It comes from looking at my mother in a hospital bed after being t-boned by a drunk driver.

It comes from watching my brother going through the frustration of trying to get a drunk's insurance company to pay for his car. The one the drunk hit after blowing through a stop sign.

It's not nice and it's not PC but I won't shed a tear if this drunk were given the boot by the district.

[Archae]

30. I agree 100%, for the same reasons.

My parents and one sister were injured by a drunk lawyer who pulled every stunt imaginable to avoid responsibility after blowing a stop sign and T-boning my parents' car.

And this woman in the OP has a violent history.

[Jake Stern]

33. The drunk in the SUV that hit my father and I

was fleeing a hit and run he did just minutes before. The ADA wanted to give him a sweetheart plea: alcohol classes and 12 month suspension. He finally got 90 days house arrest after I asked, nay demanded to make a statement to the judge against the deal.

[get the red out]

54. Punishment by the law

The legal system should punish DUI's. When they go to jail, job loss naturally would follow from them being absenst. I am against teachers being treated differently.

[WestCoastLib]

32. The legal system handles crime and punishment. Not employers

Dangerous road you want to go down otherwise (no pun intended).

[Archae]

34. Quite true, and here in Wisconsin...

A fourth DUI usually gets months in jail and hefty fine.

[treestar]

53. good point. It seems these days employers are supposed to add

to the punishment, putting the person further out of society.

[KamaAina]

37. Dick Cheney is teaching kindergarten in Milwaukee?

[KamaAina]

40. Don't the Milwaukee schools have an employee assistance program?

I would highly recommend that Ms. Cox avail herself of it if they do.

[lumberjack_jeff]

42. I'm curious how juvenile records become internet articles. n/t

[dilby]

44. So making her unemployed will fix her problems.

She needs help, she obviously has a drinking problem and hopefully this will be a wake-up call for her. But she is also only 29 with her whole life ahead of her, if she loses her job it certainly won't help her or society out.