My 16 yo kid had over $50.00 taken from his wallet at school. Yeah, dumb to take that much money to school, but he's learned his lesson on that one. He had his wallet with him all day, but it seems that it was removed from his bag sometime before, during or after his football game (bag was on a locked bus). All but $5.00 was taken. He knows he had the money at lunch time.

For the record - he has no reason to lie to us about this. This is money he earned, and he knows he won't get it back from us.

I e-mailed the principal yesterday, and he's going to talk with my son today to get more info.

Last nite, my son tells me that another player had approximately the same amount of money taken the week before. His dad contacted the school after hearing that my kid also had money taken.

Is there any point at all in contacting the police? I have never dealt with this kind of situation before, so I don't know what I should be doing.

There is a resource officer at the school, and it's possible the principal will involve him.

I'm leaning toward waiting to hear what action the school is taking. What would you do if you were in this situation?

I know he probably won't see this money again. My concern - this is a small school, and if word doesn't get out, more kids will have money/things taken from them. I know theft was an issue in the past.

Thanks for any insight.

It seems like it would have to have been someone who knew he had the money in his wallet. The thief isn't going to be randomly going from bag to bag, KWIM? Ask your son to think about who would have known he had it on him.

Personally I would. That would give a heads up to the resource officer just in case the principal doesn't bring him in. Also the other kids need to be warned about bringing large amounts of money to school.

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From personal experience the school really doesn't do much. We also had a resourse officer. One of my girls had $800 taken from her purse at school. Yes she should not of had that much with her but the school had a bank that was paying great interest rates so she took some money and put it in there, there was a limit of $500 per child so her friend told my dd if she wanted to put more in under her name she could since she wasn't going to do it. So a few weeks before the end of the year they each got checks for thier money. DD and friend went to Walmart to pick up somethings they needed for a project and while there dd cashed the checks to pay for her items. She cashed both checks. BIG MISTAKE. Anyway then she went on to work and did not have time to go to the bank. She was planning on going right after school the next day. Anyway the money was taken from her purse in class. The girl that she suspected took it actually bragged about how much money she had the next day.
Resource officer questioned the girl and she did eventually admit it. He filed charges on her and that was all that ever happened. The girl got suspended for a few days. And she has since stolen 2 more times from other kids. And had already been accused 1 time before my dd got hers taken. Same consequences suspended for a few days then nothing. My dd had the most taken from her the other were from $20 to $100
It is ashamed the school does not do more. And the resource office filed charges on this girl and she got a diversion in court. The girls defense against stealing my dd's money was that she must of been selling drugs to have that kind of money in the first place so she shouldn't even complain. My daughter even tried to explain that she got the money from an inheritence (she got $4000 right away and gets more at 21) But they really didn't want to hear it. It was really stupid my dd felt the need to defend herself when she was a victim.

I would definitely keep up on the principal and the school w/ this one, but unless your son can narrow it down to whom might have taken it, I don't see how charges can be pressed. Unfortunately, this is probably going to be one of those "life lessons" for your son.

I would report it to police with the principal knowing. It's against the law if someone was stabbed or something they would involve the police now is no different. That kid whether you find out or not needs to know that this is serious.

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Yes, if it was me I would report it. I think the only reason the schools don't report stuff like this is because they don't want to give their school a bad name, they don't want to be bothered. It is up to the individual to make a police report unless it was just something so outrageous the school just had no other option than to call the police in like a murder or gun brought to school or something like that, they couldn't get away with not reporting that. I can remember when I was in school, there would be fights, the school would just break them up and send the kids home for a few days, the parents were the ones that would take the kids down to press the charges against each other.

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Thanks everyone for your replies so far. I'm still waiting to hear back from the principal before I decide how to proceed.

It's definitely a life lesson for the kid. My point in consider filing a report with the police was just to have a record of this incident - I realize they will probably not find out who took the money. I just don't know if there is any benefit to filing the report?

I don't want to create hard feelings that will have any negative repercussions (?sp) for my son. We live in a small town, and my kids have done very well here. Othen than making ME feel like I've done something, will filing a report accomplish anything? (Other than possibly p*ssing off school staff - principal, coaches, Athletic Director, etc, and do I have any reason to even think they would be p*ssed? What kind of trouble might I cause?)

I cannot believe the amount of robbery that goes on in the schools, even so called small and nice schools. My DD had her ipod stolen out of her pocketbook during gym class. She had locked it in her locker during class. Afterward she unlocked the locker, grabbed her clothes, and went a couple of feet to a changing room. Two girls she has gone to school with since kindergarten (and CCD) were in the vicinity. Sure enough, ipod disappears. Vice principal got it back when he questioned the two girls. They "found it" They also scratched dd's engraved name off of it. One girl was suspended for a couple of days, the other was called a 'witness'....... No apology, no call from the other parents, nothing . The VP told me this girl was struggling with issues, trying to be good etc which I since found out is a crock. She brags about all the stealing and shoplifting she gets away with and rolls her eyes and gives other attitude to my DD. I wish I had callled the police. Iwould reccomend it. And kids talk alot. They will find out who took the money. Alot of kids experience theft in the schools. I think police intervention will make the perps a whole lot more nervous.

The school I work at (middle school) has a resource officer full-time at school also. If the school has been informed, and the parents do not report it to the police, our resource officer will. I would definitely report it, because a pattern of theft is emerging. I would also talk to the coach about it.

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Iwould definitely report it. My son had an iPod stolen at school last year. I figured it was gone. He talked to the vice principal, and then the school officer as well as the teacher of the class where he knew he last had it. They already had a pretty good idea who had taken it, and the officer just kept calling the kid down to the office until he confessed and returned it.

Schools usually have a pretty good idea who the kids are that would steal something. You certainly aren't losing anything by reporting it, and might even get it back.

Report it.
They may not ever get it back. But if everyone it happens to reports it. Maybe they will do something to prevent it from happening again.
I volunteer for the Sheriffs dept here. We tell people report things even if you think nothing will be done.

Let us know what happens. Please update us !

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nothing so far. DS last night said that he didn't speak to the principal yesterday.

There was open house last night, and I'm thinking he (principal) was busy with that - they do a "carnival" type thing to draw families to attend. He has always been very responsive to my concerns, so I'm going to give him a couple of days. I'm thinking I will get in touch with him Monday if I haven't heard from him by then.

I saw him last night, but his time was taken up with training parents how to access our on-line grading system, so I didn't bother him with this.

Geez, as I'm typing this I'm wondering if maybe I'm not being aggressive enough about this whole process. I'm just trying not to to be a PIA.

I'll be sure to update. Thanks again to everyone for your advice - I do think I'm going to file a police report, but want to talk to principal first.

Sandy

Sometimes you have to be the squeeky wheel! And I think in instances such as this one time is of the essence.

I would keep following up with it without letting time pass.
It is a shame that this has to happen. At my daughters old school the school prided themselves on having wonderful children and there were no locks on any of the lockers. (An open invitaion and temptation) Pens and small stuff went missing all of the time. One boy took $$$, video games, iPods, cell phones and was caught with all the items from his grade classmates in his labeled backpack. It was a shame since his mom worked at this private Christian school.
At our new school it has only been a few days but my daughter has heard so many people having $$ stolen from thier handbags.

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