Texas Teacher Bribes Student to Cheat

(Alief, Texas) A teacher at Alexander Elementary School offered a bribe to a 9-year-old fourth-grade student to take a reading test while impersonating another student.

“He said he’d give me a hundred balloon bucks if I pretended to be somebody else,” said Vecino Rogers, a 9-year-old fourth grade student at Alexander Elementary School. “I knew it sounded funny, but I wanted the money.”

Balloon bucks are used as currency by students to purchase items on campus.

Vecino’s mother, Erika Sodie, says she learned about what happened a few days later.

“To think a teacher would tell my boy to cheat and lie is something I can’t even imagine,” said Sodie. “It’s not the kind of lesson I want my boy to be receiving at school.”

Alief school officials confirmed that the incident did happen and said that disciplinary measures have been taken. However, the teacher was not fired as has been called for by activist Quanell X. School officials said the episode stemmed from "a friendly competition between teachers who earn bragging rights for having students who read the most books."

The mother fears that her son has been corrupted by the incident. Frankly, the real fear should be in placing any trust whatsoever in the teacher. He appears to have a solidly dishonest element in his professional character.