Stealing

[Patricio Freire]

I'm wondering how to deal with the issue of stealing. One of the
students "lost" her purse in our classroom during clean up, but she
didn't notice until everybody was out of the door so we couldn't retain
the students for a search.

Patricio

[Nancy Brady]

Hi Patricio,
I am wondering what happened after this letter from you. In our school
we have had that problem with even young children. We have had talks
with the whole class and have given student's the time to return things
by: taking the class to the library after an announcement the day
before( to give the child a chance to get the stolen object from home,
or a locker, etc), then having each child go into an empty classroom
for a minute. The stolen object would be returned and no one knew who
returned it. In one instance the teacher (who suspected a certain
student) went into a back pack when the student's were at recess and
found the stolen object. The parents were called in for a conference
with the teacher and principal and then the parents handled it. What
did your art teacher mentor say about the incident? I am curious how
these things are handled at secondary level.
Nancy Brady