Florida Teacher Resigns After Getting Caught Letting Students Buy Their Grades
The equation leading to a Florida math teacher resigning his job was quite simple. Jeff Spires, a Charlotte County high school teacher resorted to changing students’ grades in exchange for cash because he was facing bankruptcy and jail time.
Spires was suspended without pay on Oct. 14 and resigned two weeks later after several students brought his pay-for-grades scheme to the attention of administrators. Spires admitted to changing grades for students willing to pay him money.
According to a report issued by the school, Spires admitted that “he had taken money from two different math students in exchange for improving their grades in math class.” Get this, all students had to do in exchange for Spires changing their grade was to staple the cash to the test or quiz. There were no set rates or a sliding scale for how much grades cost. Some students allegedly paid as much as $40 and as little as $15 to have their grades altered.
Some students who paid the teacher didn’t even receive the benefit of an improved overall term grade.
“This is one of the most disturbing events I’ve seen in my 40 years,” Douglas Whittaker, Charlotte County Public Schools superintendent, told WZVN.
So how did a math teacher, first hired by Charlotte County in 2002, find himself brazenly charging money for altering grades? Spires was booked three times in Charlotte County Jail within the last two years, WINK reports — for DUI, driving with a suspended license, and probation violations.
We’re no criminal masterminds, but if we were going to charge students cash for changing grades we would definitely come up with a better system than having students staple cash to the tests.
Apparently, Spires has never heard of the hush hush.
If there is any silver lining to this shocking story, at least this isn’t one more tale of a teacher getting arrested for boning an underage student.
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