Strip-search claims prompt police to investigate Monroe teacher

10/9/2008

MONROE - Authorities expect to finish their investigation this week into accusations that three female students at Trinity Lutheran School were strip-searched by a female teacher who was looking for missing money.

Monroe Deputy Police Chief Thomas Moore said the seventh-grade students and their parents were interviewed yesterday by detectives.

Investigators will forward the information to the county prosecutor's office, which could file charges.

Three parents contacted Monroe police after the Oct. 1 incident, claiming the female students were asked to disrobe down to their underwear after $42 was reported missing at the school at 323 Scott St., Deputy Chief Moore said.

The school's principal has been placed on two-week administrative leave.

The Rev. Stanley AuBuchon, senior pastor of the church, said any disciplinary action against the teacher could come later this week after the Trinity Lutheran Church Council and Day School Commission receives its own report on the incident.

The commission oversees activities at the 176-student Trinity Lutheran School, which holds classes from preschool through eighth grade.

The report to the church council during a closed meeting tonight also will try to determine how much, if any, money actually had been taken, Pastor AuBuchon said.

The names of the teacher and the principal were withheld.

Pastor AuBuchon would not say why the principal was put on administrative leave.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.