Teacher Elizabeth Logan is accused of stealing a third-grader's coat and trying to sell it on eBay
Posted on 05/04/2007 12:42:14 PM PDT by Incorrigible
By HOLLY DANKS And MELISSA NAVAS — Thursday May 03, 2007
| Teacher Elizabeth Logan is accused of stealing a third-grader's coat and trying to sell it on eBay |
|
HILLSBORO, Ore. — "I told her, 'Be sure not to lose this coat,''' the third-grader's mother remembers reminding the girl.
"It's expensive, and I usually didn't let her wear it to school. But it was cold.''
The 8-year-old promised. But on Jan. 10 she came home in tears. She had become warm during recess on the Jackson Elementary School playground and took off her gloves and the $114 navy blue Columbia Sportswear Tectonite coat.
When she returned without the coat, her teacher immediately sent the girl to look for it. The gloves were where she had left them, but not the ski jacket her grandmother had given her.
"A staff member found her crying by the lost-and-found,'' the mother said.
The jacket would turn up, but only after the girl's mother tracked it to an eBay auction and took her suspicions to police. On Friday, Elizabeth Lucinda Logan, a Jackson Elementary teacher, will be in court. She faces charges of stealing the coat and trying to sell it.
The girl's parents asked that she not be identified in this story because of their concerns about their children who still attend the school.
Two days after the coat disappeared, the girl and her mother blanketed the school with fliers showing a photo of her wearing it. For days, they searched classrooms, checked the school's lost-and-found boxes, asked teachers and staff whether anyone had seen the jacket.
"Things don't disappear into thin air,'' the mother said. "I just wanted an explanation. I just wanted the coat back.''
An avid online shopper, the mother decided to check out eBay to find a replacement.
"I was scanning them on the off chance that it was there,'' the mother said. "It was just a gut feeling.''
What she found Jan. 18 was like a punch to the gut, she said.
The photo of the jacket that had been auctioned for $46 first caught the mother's eye. When she opened the site, she realized that the 7/8 size, colors and model perfectly matched her daughter's missing coat. Digging further, she saw the seller was from Hillsboro and the jacket was posted for sale the day after her daughter's disappeared.
The seller's eBay ID matched a name on the Jackson School Web site.
The mother made an appointment with the principal on Jan. 22, when she presented ``all the coincidental information.'' Mysteriously, the jacket reappeared at the school that morning, ripped to pieces.
Police were called and took up the case. Investigators connected the eBay account to Logan, a Jackson Elementary first-grade teacher.
Logan, 41, will be arraigned Friday in Washington County Circuit Court on a secret grand jury indictment. The teacher was arrested Feb. 6 and cited for theft by receiving and criminal misuse of a computer.
In a prepared statement, Krista Shipsey, Logan's private attorney, said: "Ms. Logan deeply regrets the impact that this allegation has had on her community, especially the children at Jackson Elementary. She has been a devoted and caring teacher for 20 years and truly misses working with her first-graders. Ms. Logan has been devastated by this allegation.''
Lt. Michael Rouches, Hillsboro police spokesman, said Logan told investigators she found the jacket in the school's lost-and-found bin and was auctioning it on eBay until her dog tore it up. Rouches said Logan has made more than 1,000 eBay transactions.
She was still selling Wednesday under the screen name logan6921, with a 99.9 percent positive feedback rating.
Logan told police she routinely buys bulk clothing at Goodwill for $1.39 a pound, goes through the pile for hidden treasures and sells what she can on eBay.
Hillsboro School District officials said Logan was placed on paid leave Feb. 7, the day after her arrest.
Nicole Kaufman, district spokeswoman, said administrators are conducting their own internal investigation.
Logan began teaching in the Hillsboro School District in 1987. She started at Jackson Elementary in 1998, and was earning nearly $69,000 a year when she went on leave.
Jackson School principal Janis Hill said she made a "measured decision'' to call or meet with only the parents in Logan's 25-student class to tell them the teacher was on paid leave during the investigation.
Leana Garrison, whose 7-year-old son, Nate, is in Logan's class, said parents were left in the dark about the reason for Logan's leave.
Since Logan's departure, Garrison said, her son is not as excited about school.
"He's constantly writing to her,'' Garrison said. "He just misses her and really liked her as a teacher.''
Hill said school counselors have been available to students to help cope with emotional stress since Logan left.
"First-grade teachers are kind of like the princess, the queen, mom rolled together,'' Hill said.
(Holly Danks and Melissa Navas are staff writers for The Oregonian of Portland, Ore. They can be contacted at hollydanks(at)news.oregonian.com and melissanavas(at)news.oregonian.com.)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
WTH is wrong with these teachers?
Good Lord, they gave all the good teachers I know a bad name!
for the ping list? Not quite the “naughty” that’s usually part of it...but still...
There are times that I am embarrassed to be a teacher.
..... Logan told investigators she found the jacket in the school’s lost-and-found bin
Look what followed me home!
I love how she just found it instead of saying she was rummaging around the bin looking for things to hock on ebay.
Bad, bad, bad teacher.
Don't be. You are no more responsible for every bad thing teachers does that I am for every bad thing fat white guys do.
uh....teachers do....not teachers does....
just when I thought I’d heard it all
Financial and prudential considerations aside, what kind of a person steals from a child in her care?
Boy, you've got that right. That's the first thing I thought of, that Principal knew and warned her. Dispicleable.
This caught my eye too.
Rouches said Logan has made more than 1,000 eBay transactions.
So, for how long has she been doing this? How much of that stuff used to belong to children in her classroom? I wonder.
Dispicleable=Despicable
The mother made an appointment with the principal on Jan. 22, when she presented ``all the coincidental information.’’ Mysteriously, the jacket reappeared at the school that morning, ripped to pieces.
***Lotta good that did the mom, reporting it to the principal. If there were some way to verify it, I would bet tons of money that he gave the teacher the heads-up.
Just another bad thing some teacher done ....
The girl’s parents asked that she not be identified in this story because of their concerns about their children who still attend the school.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
These parents still have children in this school???
Huh? And they don’t want their name given our because they fear of retailiation by the school against their other children?
What are they brain dead?
It used to be that decent society shunned the perpetrators, not the victims. What a world we live in now.
She should have stole herself another set of frames for those glasses.
69K a year! holy cow!
Just when you think there couldn’t possibly be more reasons to homeschool, the public schools come up with a new one.
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