Cellphone incident results in probation

A local mother was given probation and must make a public apology for her actions in accosting a high school teacher last year during a dispute involving her daughter?s cellphone.

The mother, Tina Marcom, was granted a one-year judicial diversion on the charge of assault, meaning she may have her record erased if she gets into no further trouble during her probationary period. She will also be required to attend anger management, perform 20 hours public service work, and must make a public apology at the school to the faculty of Warren County High School where the crime occurred.

The incident happened in late 2005 when Marcom confronted high school teacher Diane Page, who was serving on bus duty outside the school at the end of the day.

Page testified during preliminary hearing that the incident happened after she took away the phone of Marcom?s daughter, along with phones from 10 or 12 other students as they stood outside in the bus pick-up area.

?Cellphones are not allowed in school, but that afternoon there were still a lot of kids using them,? Page testified.

Page said she was clutching the phones in her arms when she was suddenly approached by the parent and had the phones forcibly taken away from her.

?She said I had no right to take them, and that she?d tell when her daughter could use her phone,? Marcom testified, saying the parent began pulling the phones away from her one at a time, returning the seized phones to the students standing nearby. ?She took about 10 from what I can remember.?

Marcom left after finding her daughter?s phone in the mix but was stopped by a school resource officer before she could get off campus. Page said she was sore the following day because of Marcom?s assault.

In accepting the plea agreement, Circuit Court Judge Bart Stanley suggested Marcom was sending a bad message to her daughter and other students by encouraging them to disobey school rules which, in this case, forbids the use of cellphones on campus.

Marcom was originally charged with aggravated assault and could have faced up to six years in prison if convicted.