An elementary school principal in Eagan, MN, is on paid leave after the parents of a kindergarten student said he made their son remove paper towels the boy had dropped into a toilet.

The boy’s parents, Elijah and Shannon Hannah, filed a complaint against Principal Doug Steele in an incident involving one of their sons, who hasn’t been named in media coverage by the Star Tribune.

The boy claims the trouble started when he used a bathroom and wiped himself with paper towels, accidentally causing the toilet to clog.

The boy’s teacher called the principal who allegedly made the boy clear out the toilet bowl bare-handed.

Through his attorney, Steele has provided a slightly different story. He says the toilet contained only water and paper towels and that he only asked the six-year-old boy to remove the towels and put them in the trash.

Steele’s attorney says firing would be too harsh a penalty.

Elijah Hannah says the principal should lose his job. The Hannahs have said they will consider legal action if the district doesn’t fire Steele.

Steele is entitled to a hearing, and asked for one, which could take two to three months.

His attorney claims the school board wants to fire Steele.

Citing legal reasons, the school district said it will continue to decline comment on the case until the end of the hearing process.

The only information we have so far on this case is what’s been reported in the media. However, Steele does admit he made the boy take paper towels out of the toilet with his bare hands.

Is firing too harsh in this case? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

The drivers complain the helmets are too expensive and that their riders don’t want to wear them because they think they’ll catch a disease or be put under a spell.

Construction workers are renting their safety helmets to the drivers for about $3.60 a day.

So far, 28 drivers have been arrested in the city of Kano, and newspapers report arrests in other cities, too.

A Federal Road Safety Commission commander says the drivers have nothing to complain about. They had several months notice before the new law went into effect, and the safety helmets were available for under $6.

Special Education Director William Santiago was dropping his own child off at school on a rainy day and was blocked by traffic from reaching other parking spaces. That’s when Santiago used the handicapped spot.

Parent Chris Beckham was dropping off his two children. Both have muscular dystrophy, and one of them uses a scooter.

Beckham says he asked Santiago not to park in the handicapped spot again, according to The Arizona Republic.

Then, Beckham said Santiago told him, “Just because you have a hard life doesn’t mean the world owes you everything.”

The parent filed a complaint with the school district which counseled Santiago and sent Beckham a letter of apology.

Beckham says he appreciates what the district has done so far, but he believes Santiago should face harsher discipline.

This case isn’t over yet. Beckham says he plans to take further action by complaining to the Mesa Public School governing board or the state Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Illegal use of a handicapped parking space can result in a citation with a $101 fine in Mesa. Santiago wasn’t cited in the incident.

A British teacher came up with the idea for students to do push-ups as punishment for arriving late to class.

The unnamed teacher worked at the Derby Moor Community Sports College, so it seemed fitting to give students physical activity for lateness.

The school didn’t see it that way. It suspended the teacher and is investigating.

A representative for the teachers’ union said, “it’s political correctness gone mad.”

The school issued a statement saying its “priority is to ensure that students are happy to be in school.”

Chicago Public Schools are considering whether to suspend or fire a teacher. The parents of a 13-year-old Muslim boy say the teacher called the boy a terrorist.

The Chicago Tribune reports the teacher allegedly turned to the boy during a history class and used him as an example of “terrorists blowing up something on a plane.”

School officials have investigated the complaint against the unnamed teacher, and she now faces discipline. The district hasn’t yet decided what the discipline will be.

But when it comes to faking pictures of animals in China, that’s not been the case.

China has fired several government officials and arrested another man in connection with fake photos of a highly endangered tiger.

A farmer produced the photos of a South China tiger in a forest, supposedly proving the endangered animal’s existence in northern Shaanxi province. He received 20,000 yuan (almost $3,000) for the photo.

Nine months later, officials admitted the photos were faked, according to reports in the Chinese state media.

The farmer faces fraud charges. Thirteen local government officials were shown the door, including the deputy head of the province’s forestry bureau.

This is just one of several major scandals involving official endorsement of photos of wildlife in recent years.

Earlier this year, the editor of a Chinese newspaper quit after one of its photographers faked a prize-winning photo of endangered Tibetan antelopes.

And HRB told you earlier this year the story of faked pigeon photos.

There’s no truth to the rumor that this current fraud will be made into a film, Cropping Tiger, Fired Deputy. 

A federal court has ruled that a city did not violate the Constitutional rights of an employee who received a verbal reprimand for having an affair. The employee, Sharon Johnson, was a police officer for LaVerkin City, UT and a member of the county’s SWAT team.

The somewhat complicated story (but we’ll boil it down to the important parts) starts when she separated from her husband and started divorce proceedings.

During that time, the city sent Ms. Johnson to a training conference elsewhere in Utah — a regular type of refresher course.

At the conference, after training sessions had ended for the day, Ms. Johnson had an affair with another police officer who was not from her department.

Somehow her husband learned of the affair. First the husband told police supervisors his estranged wife had been raped at the conference. Ms. Johnson told her superiors the sex had been consensual.

Then her husband made another false accusation — that his estranged wife had the affair with the city police chief.

The City Council decided to investigate and placed both Ms. Johnson and the chief on administrative leave. The county also asked Ms. Johnson to step down from her SWAT team position until the matter was cleared up.

The investigation was to be confidential, but somehow it leaked to the local newspaper which printed the story on the front page.

Ms. Johnson’s husband recanted his story, and the chief and Ms. Johnson were eventually reinstated to their jobs.

As a result of City Council’s investigation, they learned of her brief affair with the officer from another department. Council’s investigator recommended that Ms. Johnson receive a written reprimand over the incident.

The reasoning for the discipline was based upon the law enforcement code of ethics requiring officers to “keep [their] private life unsullied as an example to all and behave in a manner that does not bring discredit to [the] agency.” The reprimand said Ms. Johnson has allowed her personal life to interfere with her duties as a police officer.

Ms. Johnson refused to sign the written reprimand at which point it turned into a verbal-only reprimand.

When Ms. Johnson sought reinstatement to the SWAT team, the county required her to obtain a letter stating she was in good standing with the city and was no longer on administrative leave. The city’s letter only said that she was no longer on leave, so the county chose not to reinstate her to the SWAT team.

Employee files lawsuit

A few months later, Ms. Johnson resigned from the police force, believing her credibility as an officer had been undermined by the city’s actions. She sued the city and city manager.

She argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas established “a broad-based fundamental right to engage in private sexual conduct.”

But the 10th Circuit Court decided it was reasonable for the police department to privately admonish Ms. Johnson’s personal conduct consistent with its code of conduct when it believes that discipline will further the public’s respect for its officers and the department they represent.

In other cases, personal conduct off the job has resulted in someone’s firing.

HRB wrote earlier about the saga of news anchors at the CBS-TV affiliate in Philadelphia. One anchor, Alycia Lane, was let go because, according to the station, she became the news instead of just reporting it. Her firing came before she had a court date on charges she slapped a New York City police officer. Those charges have effectively been dropped.

How much should personal conduct outside work matter to a person’s career? Does it depend on the type of job? What type of jobs should have so-called “morals clauses” in contracts? Let us hear from you.

Here’s the scoop: A 57-year-old Kinokawa City bureaucrat was spending up to three hours almost every work day surfing porn at work. This went on for eight months.

(We’ll do the math for you. Eight months, minus some vacation and holidays, five days a week, for 90 minutes average per day, is about 240 hours looking at naughty pictures at his desk. That’s six work weeks’ worth of wanton Web surfing.)

The city found out about his online ogling because his computer kept on picking up a particular virus, according to media reports.

The porn sites were from other countries, so they got through the city’s security net, said to one official.

His punishment: three months suspension and a demotion.

Angered citizens called city hall saying the suspension wasn’t enough.

What do you think? And what fate would employees at your company meet if they surfed porn at work?