School workers stealing identities

Teachers may be among the most trusted people in the United States. Parents rely on them to teach their children and prepare them for their futures. They are also given access to confidential legal, medical and financial records.  However, it is becoming somewhat more frequent to hear about new stories in which educators abused their position of power and stole an individual's identity. Many of their victims have no idea this occurred until they attempt to apply for a loan and cannot successfully obtain one due to bad credit or they are approached by debt collection agents because of a fraudulent purchase or loan they have not made payments on. The Associated Press reported an arrest warrant was issued for a Cheyenne, Wyoming, woman last week. Teresa Meadowcroft, the former head of a Montessori school, has been accused of identity theft, forgery and grand larceny after allegedly stealing over $66,000 from the institution. Meadowcroft is being implicated of using corporate credit cards for personal purchases, cards which were not authorized to have been made. In 2011, a large identity theft ring that had its base in a Florida school was broken up, My 33, Miami's CBS affiliate reported. Jasmin Rembert, an employee at Broward School District's teacher certification department, was indicted for selling personal and financial information of teachers, which Rembert accessed using her office computer, according to the source. The Sun Sentinel detailed that Rembert used her position as an administrator to compromise the identity of 42 people across Florida, which resulted in fraudulent purchases totaling $408,000. Rembert was able to access the data of any teacher in the state, as well as any public employee of her district. Rembert was sentenced to a term of 63 months behind bars for the crime, according to the Sun Sentinal. Sometimes, though, teachers are not directly at fault for the malicious crime. Recently, the personal information of more than 1,200 students was potentially compromised in San Antonio, WOAI-4 reported. The truck of a North East School of the Arts teacher working at Lee High School was broken into while parked at a local grocery store. The robbers made off with files on an external hard drive, which contained private information about past and present students. According to the source, the information can only be opened with certain software, but it is still a potential breach.