Coach steals lunch money from students. Needs a raise.

[CoolBreeze]

CITRA FLORIDA-- Students sick of getting their lockers broken into and having their money disappear set up a cell phone camera to hopefully catch the crook in the act.

Deputies said the video showed the crook was Steven Simmons, 49, their PE teacher.

It's news that spread quickly at North Marion High School.

“There's videos going around and forwarded messages of his mug shot, and it's crazy,” said Shelby Revels, a North Marion High student.

Deputies said at first Simmons denied going into the lockers.

However, when confronted with the video, they said he confessed to stealing money from students for years.

This year, it totaled around $400.

“When you think about it, like, he does have a job,” Revels said. “He can work for his money. Why would he steal it, especially from the school he works at. I just think that's insane.”

Deputies said after years of thefts and no other suspects, the video played a key role.

“It wasn't until the student set up this video and actually caught the teacher doing it and he was able to say look you can clearly see it's the Physical Education teacher,” said Jenifer Lowe, a spokeswoman for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

]A school spokesman said it's possible the student who recorded the cell phone video could get in trouble as well because students are not supposed to use their phones during the day.

School officials said they are not allowed to record video in locker rooms because of privacy.
http://www.cfnews13.com/News/Local/2010 ... ckers.html

OK.. question: How do you set up a cell phone to record for an hour... or long periods of time?

[Greg Goodfellow]

What irony...a kid become proactive when the administration does nothing for years, then HE could get in trouble for solving the mystery. HOWEVER he was able to pull this off, kudos to him!

[Tom Taggart]

School administration going into full cover-up mode by blaming the student.