Teacher fills her car with 11 students to go to Walmart

[sparrowsong]

Oklahoma middle school teacher Heather Cagle wanted to do "something sweet" for her 11 yearbook students, so she piled them all into her Honda Accord and drove them to Walmart for a snack. If you're thinking, "that's too many middle schoolers to fit in a sedan," you're right. To get them to fit, she had to lock two 12-year-olds in the trunk.


Now, she's fired.


Of course, she had the best of intentions, but the long-time math teacher and yearbook instructor lost her judgement when she decided to take nearly a dozen kids between the ages of 12 to 15 on her little outing.
 For one thing, a teacher needs signed consent from each parent before taking kids off school grounds. For another, she locked two of them in the trunk like she was in a Quentin Tarantino movie.


According to Fox 23, the school board had a four hour due process hearing where Cagle begged for her job back and claimed she had made "a terrible mistake."




The devil got the better of her.

Another terrible mistake she made was showing up to her hearing in a shirt with upside-down crosses. I'm no lawyer, but when you are fighting for your job as a middle school teacher, perhaps you shouldn't wear the mark of the Beast.


The Daily Mail reports that "the attorney representing the school said that the students suffered mental abuse, and that the teacher tried to cover up the sneaky snack run by telling the kids to keep it 'hush hush.'"


Cagle's attorney Richard O'Carroll countered by claiming that "there wasn't any danger and it was a farce. All you got to do is cry a lawsuit or something these days. It wasn't the best judgement. She went 400 yards on an empty road through a parking lot. No one was hurt."

Despite the fact that nearly 50 teachers and students showed up to the hearing in support of Mrs. Cagle, the school board voted to fire her in a 4-1 vote.

Walmart has not responded for comment on the incident, although perhaps they will consider offering the veteran teacher and snack aficionado a job.

[rosiedozie]

wtf. What an idiot!

[NewOrleans]

[zoidberg]

WHAT?

[darthnbjenni]

The Tarantino and mark of the beast had me in fits. I wish our local news affiliates had that sense of humor.

[nsl]

One very real danger inherent in spending the majority of your days with teenagers is that you can start to think like them. This is maybe the most extreme case I've seen, but it certainly proves the point.

[emisi]

Mental abuse? Oh please. At the time, the kids probably thought it was the best thing ever.

But seriously, if it was 400 yards, why exactly didn't they just walk?

[vanillacourage]

The kids might not have been in actual danger but her choices show such a serious lapse in judgment that I think she probably should have been fired.

[jena]

Please tell me they did a drug test on her. Because she must have been high to even consider this.

[katfco]

Setting aside the students I the trunk thing (seriously, what the heck??), how did she fit the rest of them in her car?

[iammalcolmx]

I stopped at her dumb ass locking two kids in a trunk!!! Tha fuck?

[irishbride2]

So many steps along the way were wrong.

Jesus

[redwino]

I call bullshit on this mentally damaging the kids but this dummy deserves to be fired. It's dumb to take one student anywhere in your personal vehicle without permission. You can get fired for that. Putting kids in your trunk is definitely the end of your career. I just don't understand how she thought this was ok at any point.

[akayf]

Dec 20, 2014 15:04:33 GMT -5 @246baje said:

Is this déjà vu? Didn't this happen last year?

Lurker chiming in. There was a preschool teacher who did something similar last year. I think it was in another country.

The only reason I remember this is because DH and his friends once pulled a stunt like this back in high school. His friend had a little red hatchback car that they called the red lunch box. First one in the group that had a car. People kept asking him for a ride home one day. He kept saying yes. Got to the car and there was a crowd of people waiting for their promised ride. So a large number of stupid 15 and 16 year olds packed in like sardines.

So when a story like this pops up, DH and HS friend are all "Dude! The red lunch box rides again!"

[felicia]

Wait. 12 people total including her and only 2 had to go in the trunk? The hell you're fitting 10 people, no matter the age, in the cabin of a Honda Accord.

I can't get on board with wanting to keep a teacher that displays that lack of common sense.

[MrsAxilla]

Dec 20, 2014 18:04:17 GMT -5 felicia said:

Wait. 12 people total including her and only 2 had to go in the trunk? The hell you're fitting 10 people, no matter the age, in the cabin of a Honda Accord.

I can't get on board with wanting to keep a teacher that displays that lack of common sense.

Laps.  I betting two in the front seat, four smooshed in the backseat with three on their laps.  

[NewOrleans]

Dec 19, 2014 23:36:59 GMT -5 jena said:

Please tell me they did a drug test on her. Because she must have been high to even consider this.

That would explain going to get the snack in the first place.

[lg28]

That's actually insane. Like, she is so messed up.

[ttt]

Dec 20, 2014 18:49:02 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

Dec 20, 2014 18:04:17 GMT -5 felicia said:

Wait. 12 people total including her and only 2 had to go in the trunk? The hell you're fitting 10 people, no matter the age, in the cabin of a Honda Accord.

I can't get on board with wanting to keep a teacher that displays that lack of common sense.

Laps.  I betting two in the front seat, four smooshed in the backseat with three on their laps.  

Yup: 

www.tulsaworld.com/communities/catoosa/schools/catoosa-teacher-fired-after-driving-students-on-snack-trip-with/article_ce620bfe-2e9f-5ecc-ada5-31aeb076c871.html

She piled 11 students ranging in age from 12 to 15 into a Honda Accord, placing two in the front seat, seven in the back seat and two 12-year-old girls in the trunk, Long said. The group traveled about one mile to a Wal-Mart, bought food items and returned to school, the attorney said.

[gpw]

"Lock two 12 year olds in the trunk"??!? JFC. Who is this stupid?

[MrsAxilla]

Dec 20, 2014 19:03:17 GMT -5 ttt said:

Dec 20, 2014 18:49:02 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

Laps.  I betting two in the front seat, four smooshed in the backseat with three on their laps.  

Yup: 

www.tulsaworld.com/communities/catoosa/schools/catoosa-teacher-fired-after-driving-students-on-snack-trip-with/article_ce620bfe-2e9f-5ecc-ada5-31aeb076c871.html

She piled 11 students ranging in age from 12 to 15 into a Honda Accord, placing two in the front seat, seven in the back seat and two 12-year-old girls in the trunk, Long said. The group traveled about one mile to a Wal-Mart, bought food items and returned to school, the attorney said.

Lol.  I didn't read that before I posted.  I just remember a couple of lunch runs in my friend's cavalier.  We didn't put anyone in the trunk, though.  That was for all the backpacks.

[stealthmom]

Dec 20, 2014 18:49:02 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

Dec 20, 2014 18:04:17 GMT -5 felicia said:

Wait. 12 people total including her and only 2 had to go in the trunk? The hell you're fitting 10 people, no matter the age, in the cabin of a Honda Accord.

I can't get on board with wanting to keep a teacher that displays that lack of common sense.

Laps.  I betting two in the front seat, four smooshed in the backseat with three on their laps.  

yep. See, that part of the story didn't phase me. Am I the only one who has done similar? I fit 8 in my little saturn. I was dd and was driving the drunk bus. Good times.

[frontbutt]

We had a teacher like this in high school. We'd all pile in the car and in the back of the truck bed and drive to the gas station down the road to get snacks. This was in 2002, so it wasn't that long ago, but then again I grew up in a seriously rural area where riding in the back of the truck was NBD.

[MrsAxilla]

This story reminded me that back in '88-89, my friend's dad used to drive me home everyday. He had a two-seater, so I always sat on my friend's lap. No seatbelts. I only lived a few blocks away, but he was a teacher at our school and should have known better. So dangerous.

[elleblue]

That's a special kind of dumb.

I once climbed into the trunk of my friend's car my Senior year in high school so she could sneak me out (closed campus). But at least there was only one of me in her trunk. And I was only 16, not quite 17 so obviously our judgment wasn't the greatest.

[laurenpetro]

My sister had me in the trunk of her car several times.

#thankssis

[kershnic]

I would totally expect that kind of car loading shenanigans from teenagers. I had a few friends in high school who rode in trunks occasionally, and we rode with a fourth person on the back laying across the three laps pretty regularly.... you know, sitting in the front passenager seat is "shotgun" and laying across the laps in the back is "seatbelt." Teenagers, man, it's a wonder the species survives.

But a teacher leading this whole thing? Yah, she deserves to be fired.

[UMaineTeach]

Dec 20, 2014 19:03:17 GMT -5 ttt said:

Dec 20, 2014 18:49:02 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

Laps.  I betting two in the front seat, four smooshed in the backseat with three on their laps.  

Yup: 

www.tulsaworld.com/communities/catoosa/schools/catoosa-teacher-fired-after-driving-students-on-snack-trip-with/article_ce620bfe-2e9f-5ecc-ada5-31aeb076c871.html

She piled 11 students ranging in age from 12 to 15 into a Honda Accord, placing two in the front seat, seven in the back seat and two 12-year-old girls in the trunk, Long said. The group traveled about one mile to a Wal-Mart, bought food items and returned to school, the attorney said.

ok, the media needs to sort out the facts (not that it really matters one way or the other in the outcome of her job), was it 1,200 feet from parking lot to parking lot or was it 5,280 feet on a road? While both are not safe, one is clearly less safe than the other.

[penguingrrl]

A teacher should absolutely know better.

That said, I once fit 9 in my mid-80s toyota tercel hatchback. Two in the front seat, three across the back with two on their laps, one in the trunk hatch area. It was after the school play, I had stayed to clean up the pit, got out back and realized all of those people had assumed I could drive them home (two had asked and I had said yes). I was the only car left and didn't feel right leaving everyone so I drove all of them like that. Looking back I can't believe how dumb that was, but at the time it didn't seem like that big a deal.