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Last updated on Sunday, September 9, 2012
A Monroe County woman began a jail sentence Tuesday for her conviction of two counts of compulsory school attendance violation.
Nick Schneider, of the Greene County Daily World reports, Jeanette A. Davis, 50, of rural Bloomington, will serve her sentence in the Greene County Jail at Bloomfield until Oct. 1.
Davis, who formerly lived in Blue Sky North Subdivision in the Eastern Greene School District, had been repeatedly notified last school year about continuing absence and tardiness problems of her two children, who are students at Eastern Greene Elementary School.
She was arrested in early June and later entered a negotiated plea agreement.
Davis was sentenced Aug. 29 in Greene Circuit Court on two counts of compulsory school attendance violation to 180 days in jail with 150 days suspended on each count. She was given three days credit for time already served on the first count.
In addition, she was fined $35 and placed on probation for six months.
Two charges of neglect of a dependent - both class D felonies were dropped as part of the plea deal.
Her husband at the time of her arrest, Richard D. Rogers, of Blue Sky North Subdivision, was also charged in the case.
Rogers also entered a negotiated plea agreement in Greene Circuit and was sentenced to 180 days in jail with 173 days suspended on two counts of compulsory school attendance violation. Rogers was given credit for seven days served on each count by Special Judge Viola Taliafero, of Bloomington.
His two counts were ordered by the judge to run consecutively and he was placed on probation for six months.
Like Davis, two counts of neglect of a dependent were dropped against Rogers.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed in the case by Greene County Probation Department Investigator Julie Criger, between Nov. 1, 2011 and March 8 of this year, one of the students had 10.5 days of unexcused absences, 21 days of excused abscesses and 48 tardies (late).
The other student had accumulated 7.5 unexcused absences, 21 excused absences and 50 tardies, during the same time frame.
This was not Davis' first problem with her children attending school.
On Jan. 12, 2011, she pled guilty to one count of Compulsory School Attendance Violation -- a class B misdemeanor. She was placed on probation until Nov. 1, 2011, according to court records.
During the probation period, Davis engaged in conversation with Probation Officer Patrick Hillenberg concerning her children's attendance and tardy issues.
She told the court officer that it was her husband's responsibility to get their children to and from school, Criger wrote in the probable cause affidavit.
In a Sept. 23, 2011 interview, Rogers agreed that it was transporting the children to school and returning them home was his responsibility.
However, school officials told investigators that they witnessed both parents dropping off and picking up the two students on "numerous occasions."
On March 9, Criger and Greene County Department of a Child Services Family Caseworker attempted to interview the two children along with the two suspects, but the parents refused to let her interview their children without them present. In addition, both suspects allegedly refused to speak to Criger about the allegations.
The same day, Davis called the Eastern Greene Elementary school office and withdrew her children.
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