The Richmond County Board of Education need not waste another moment in deciding the fate of Cross Creek principal LaQuanda Carpenter; she needs to be fired post-haste.
Carpenter’s bleary, bloodshot-eyed mugshot, stemming from her Dec. 22 arrest for DUI, has made the rounds on social media and, incredibly, people are actually taking up for the embattled educator.
“Them kids drove her to drinking,” claimed one resident.
While we certainly believe in “innocent until proven guilty,” there is much more to Carpenter’s story than a simple pause in judgement. Carpenter was not cited on the questionable grounds of “alcohol less-safe,” which allows for an arrest for driving under the legal limit; no, Carpenter blew between .10 and .15 blood alcohol content on the state administered test, meaning she was falling down drunk.
In truth, if the Richmond County School Board had committed itself to due diligence in investigating Carpenter’s background, she would have never been hired in the first place. Instead, Carpenter checked all of the right “equity-in-education” boxes on the job application and was hired even though her past included allegations of alcohol use at a school event and misuse of school funds.
However, if the past is any indication, Carpenter will be returned to the school with a simple reprimand as the school board has a history of looking the other way in such matters; board trustee Wayne Frazier has been cited twice for DUI in the past and has always managed to talk himself out of any responsibility.
A pitiful number of Richmond County students already suffer from a lack of role models at home, and it seems those are far and few between in the education system as well.
Parents and taxpayers need to demand better from educators and a good starting point is to make an example out of Carpenter and terminate her immediately.
