Teacher cheats to elect niece Homecoming queen

A veteran High School teacher with a long history of work troubles had falsified hundreds of student ballots in an attempt to get her niece elected homecoming queen in September.

A wave of chuckles rose during Tuesday's School Board meeting, where Lerner and other board members were asked to approve a 25-day unpaid suspension for the teacher, Sharion Thurman, 56.

"This is not a gray area; this is cheating," Lerner said. "It's so ridiculous, it's so outrageous that all you can do is uncomfortably laugh at it," said board member Mary Russell, normally one to give a teacher the benefit of the doubt.

Thurman will lose more than $7,000 in pay. Had she lied about an academic issue, he said, she would have been fired. Article here.