Redlands CA Aug 3 2013 A Redlands middle school teacher was arrested Wednesday, July 31, on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, being under the influence of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.Jennifer Tena Krogman, 40, teaches physical education and dance at Clement Middle School.
Redlands police Lt. Travis Martinez said Thursday that police received a report that Krogman had a small amount of methamphetamine and was packaging it to be mailed.
She was arrested on Apollo Way in Beaumont. Krogman was cited at Central Detention Center in San Bernardino and released. Martinez said police are continuing to investigate Krogman.
Krogman could not immediately be reached for comment. The phone number listed for Krogman at the Apollo Way address was disconnected Thursday.
Krogman’s arrest came the same day that a former Redlands high school teacher pleaded guilty to six felonies related to having sex with three underage students. Laura Elizabeth Whitehurst, 28, pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful sex with a minor and two counts of oral copulation with a minor. The victims were students at Citrus Valley High, where Whitehurst taught English.
The Redlands Unified School District released this statement about Krogman on Thursday:
“The district has been informed that Jennifer Krogman was arrested on drug related allegations. It is the district’s policy once those allegations have been confirmed, to place the employee on paid administrative leave upon return to duty from summer break.”
On Krogman’s school webpage, she wrote that “One value that Americans have is ‘personal responsibility.’
“This basically means that when we do something we are willing to admit that we did it, whether it is good or bad, and then accept the consequences of that action. There are a wide variety of different things that happen every day in which we may have to accept personal responsibility. These can range from something as simple as admitting that we said something bad about another person to admitting that we were the person who ate all of those cookies.
“Personal responsibility is seen as very important because it reveals how honest a person is and therefore how much we can trust them,” Krogman wrote.
Krogman directs what is called the Clement Dance Co., with more than 40 student dancers. Krogman once taught dance through the Riverside parks department. She also wrote a handbook about eating disorders among dancers.
The district attorney’s office is reviewing a report from a Redlands police investigation to determine whether school district officials should be charged with failing to report suspected child abuse.
Someone approached district officials in May, weeks before the boy’s mother came forward, with suspicions about Whitehurst’s conduct. Officials said they questioned Whitehurst and a student, but when both denied having sex with each other, the case was not reported to law enforcement or child protective services.
Educators are among the more than three dozen categories of professions whose workers are required to report suspected child abuse.
source-press enterprise