A Nashville high school has lost $40,000

A NashVegas high school has misplaced almost $40,000 from concessions stands sales.

Huh?

According to our local paper, a former principal is being blamed for bad bookkeeping that allowed about $40,000 to go missing from the school's concession stands.

The principal reportedly asked school employees not to count cash at the end of basketball and football games and didn't require them to fill out the proper paperwork and inventory, according to a state audit. What?
The audit stops short of accusing the principal of stealing, but it does say he instructed staff to give him the cash after games and that his lax controls increased the risk of abuse and was a violation of state and local policies.

The former principal said Monday that the cash was turned in to him, then he stored it in an on-campus safe before giving it to the bookkeeper.

The audit, conducted by the state comptroller, estimated that $37,000 went missing from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008, and $4,550 was unaccounted for during a six-week summer school session in 2008. The audit was initiated at Metro Schools' request after the district received a complaint in November 2008.

This is the kind of story that sticks in the public's mind about MNPS schools. No amount of raised test scores or increased graduation rates erase this kind of publicity. Not because money is missing, that happens all the time in the government, it's not right but it is common, but because it's a school employee that in involved and probably responsible, a principal. He's blaming the bookkeeper, for any problems, the bookkeeper is accusing him of blaming her to cover his own tail. We'll probably never know the truth, but it's a story that people will remember.

I've said it before to colleagues over and over, if we as educators want to be treated like the trained professionals we are, we must act like it.