A Florida teacher has been busted for trying to get drugs delivered to her while she taught at an elementary school, according to authorities.
First-grade teacher Valerie Lee Prince, 43, called a dealer to bring her an eight ball of meth at Jacksonville Heights Elementary School — saying she was willing to abandon her class to collect it, according to Clay County Sheriff’s Office.
“You call me, I can just say I have to use the phone real quick — I could step out and come right back in,” she told the dealer, who was an informant who worked with police narcotics officers to record the call.
The call suggested that she planned to “consume some of the narcotics and return to the classroom,” Lt. Domenic Paniccia told a press conference, which shared audio of the teacher’s desperate call.
“The situation is disturbing,” Paniccia said. “This is someone that was in charge of kids, first-grade kids, and it’s something that was a priority to us.”
His colleague, Sgt. Vincent Hall, said it was “a pretty nonchalant request,” saying, “The indication was that it was no big deal to the suspect.”
An undercover officer later delivered her $85 of meth — outside of school hours — before Prince was arrested. She is charged with purchasing and possessing meth, a felony. She was still being held in Clay County Jail with an arraignment set for next month, court records show.
The teacher “admitted to the use of methamphetamine on multiple occasions in the last six months” and also confessed to the school-delivery deal, Hall told the presser.
“I hope that she’s stripped of her credentials and never allowed to be in contact with kids again,” Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels said.
Duval County Public Schools said it was also holding its own investigation, with Prince “removed from the school.”
“It is always disappointing and disturbing whenever an educator is implicated in this type of activity,” a spokesperson told First Coast News.