East Lee County High School teacher Robin Jenkins has been reassigned after he was arrested Tuesday on charges of marijuana possession and destroying evidence.
Lee County School District spokeswoman Amity Chandler said that Jenkins has since been reassigned and the district is conducting an internal investigation. Chandler said she could not provide information on where Jenkins was reassigned.
Jenkins is listed as a career experience and social personal skills teacher in the Students with Disability Teachers section of the East Lee County High School faculty Web page. He has also been a coach in various sports at East Lee and other Lee County schools.
Jenkins, 48, of Lehigh Acres, was pulled over by a Lee County deputy shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday after the deputy saw Jenkins’ 2001 Chevy Tahoe fail to stop at a stop sign at Gregory Avenue South and Meadow Road.
When the deputy stopped Jenkins for the traffic infraction he noticed two small objects tossed out the passenger-side window,
After getting Jenkins’ driver’s license, the deputy inspected the objects and found them to be plastic bags filled with a green leafy substance. Testing of the substance inside the bags determined it to be about three grams of marijuana, the sheriff’s office says.
Authorities say Jenkins told the deputy the marijuana was left in his vehicle by a man he gave a ride to earlier although he did not know the man personally. He told the deputy that he tried to find the man and return the marijuana to him after finding it in the truck.
The possession charge is a misdemeanor while the destroying or tampering with evidence charge is a felony. Jenkins was released from jail Wednesday on $6,500 bond and is scheduled for a hearing Jan. 4.
The school district on Thursday also said another teacher who had been arrested recently remains under investigation.
Lee County School District driver’s education teacher Richard Bull, 51, was arrested by deputies on the night of Nov. 17 for DUI after he crashed his black Dodge Ram 1500 into a ditch in a construction zone near a McDonald’s at 14551 Palm Beach Blvd.
According to a Lee County Sheriff’s Office arrest report, Bull, of Alva, said a friend called “Josh” was driving his car for him because “he was too intoxicated to drive his own truck.” Bull told deputies when the vehicle crashed, Josh fled.
However, witnesses at the restaurant named Bull as the driver in the crash.
His blood alcohol level was 0.159, according to the report. The legal limit is 0.08.
Amity Chandler, spokeswoman for the school district, said Bull has taught at Riverdale for 10 years. The district, she said, was aware of the DUI arrest.
She said a first-time allegation of DUI does not disqualify a teacher from classroom service, but “we can confidently say he won’t be teaching driver’s education.”