You may be a bad parent
Mercer County Sheriff Kevin Larkin made a “mistake” when he stopped a class at Mercer County College because he didn’t like the content of the class:
[Associate Professor Michael] Glass, teaching a State and Local Polices course, said to his class that Larkin collects an $85,000 pension and a $129,000 salary as sheriff, cited published reports that Larkin needs to pay child support — which Larkin denies — and allegedly mockingly offered Larkin’s cell phone number to the women in the class, according to the report.
No matter what the Professor said in class, it is inappropriate for anyone not invited to participate in the class to interrupt it. Technically, doing so is trespassing. You see, the college has the obligation to hold that class because it is a contractual arrangement with students. The whole idea of having a classroom is that it locks the outside world away so everyone can focus on the topic of discussion.
It should be noted that Sheriff Larkin is unrepentant:
“I’ve known Mike Glass for 30 years, and I apologize for any violation of school policy,” Larkin said.If faced with the same situation now, Larkin said, his feelings would be the same but his actions would be different.
“I certainly would defend myself, but I would not do it in violation of school policy,” Larkin said.
So it seems that the Sheriff is ignorant of school policy…except that later in that same article, he says:
Larkin, who graduated from Mercer in 1987, said it is not uncommon for visitors to arrive in the middle of class.“I was an alumnus, and I was employed by that college for five and a half years (as a security officer) and I saw classes being interrupted all the time,” he said.
First of all, let me be the first to officially say the Sheriff is full of shit.
I have taught at four schools in New Jersey for close to six years now, and I’ve never had a single course interrupted for any reason. Not one. It may be true that a visitor – defined as someone invited and/or approved by the instructor – might arrive late…but at no point is someone who shows up because a student text-messaged them considered normal. So, if it’s true that Mercer is allowing “classes being interrupted all the time,” then it is in serious breach of trust with its students. If Larkin was a security officer and allowed this to continue unchecked; then he wasn’t doing his job.
Or maybe, just maybe, the guy is lying. That’s the answer I think is true.
The thing is, when people get their ire up, they tend to expose who they really are. For example, Sheriff Larkin also says:
“I don’t (pay) any child support,” Larkin said. “I take care of my kids, I take one to day care, I drop one off at school.”“One thing I consider myself is a decent father,” he said.
Yeah, no decent father would pay child support, right, Sheriff?
Actually, child support is the obligation of a non-custodial parent to the child. There is a legal calculation that determines how much the parent is supposed to provide for the child’s upkeep and support. Let me give you a hint – as a parent, you’re obligated to do more than take a kid to school.
If Larkin doesn’t pay child support; then he’s an idiot. A child support agreement protects both the child and the non-custodial parent. It protects the child by ensuring proper support will be provided. It protects the parent by providing a means of proving that support has been provided. Otherwise, the other parent, or even the child, could file with the court for a lack of support – even if the parent in question actually went above and beyond the level of support required by law.
Larkin is worried that Glass was not being “responsible.” From my understanding of the story, I think Larkin better worry that he isn’t forking over enough of that $200K-plus income. Read a bit more on child support obligations in New Jersey.
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