Father arrested for calling police more than a dozen times over son’s homework

Ohio father was arrested after ‘repeatedly’ calling son’s elementary school to complain about his homework

A father has been arrested after repeatedly calling an Ohio school to complain about his child’s homework.

According to a police report obtained by The Independent, Adam Sizemore was arrested by officials from the Oxford Police Department after he placed approximately “18 or 19” calls to the police station in less than an hour. The father had “repeatedly” called Kramer Elementary School in Oxford, Ohio, on 29 February “because his son gets homework which takes away from the time he has with him after school”.

The police report stated that Sizemore was attempting to reach the school’s principal, Jason Merz, who was unavailable. After he was transferred to Merz’s voicemail, he began calling the school and allegedly “cursed at the secretaries while making demands of them” over the phone.

When a school resource officer urged Sizemore to stop calling, he noticed that Sizemore’s speech was slurred and asked if he was intoxicated, to which the father clarified that he was “high”.

“Sizemore continued to curse at me and call me names, such as ‘B****,’” the school resource officer recalled in the police report. “He also told me he was going to make sure I lost my job. I explained to Sizemore if he called again, I would file a Telecommunication Harassment charge on him. I ended up hanging up on him. Sizemore called right back with the same behaviour he was warned about.”

The father allegedly didn’t answer the door when two officers paid a visit to his home. When he eventually reached Principal Merz over the phone, he stated that he didn’t want his son to have homework and began to “question Principal Merz about his job” while cursing at him. He warned Sizemore about his language, and ended the call.

On 1 March, Sizemore resumed calling Kramer Elementary School and left a voicemail for the principal. “I hoped that you [Merz] put on your big boy britches on today and have a conversation like a big boy,” he said in a voicemail, according to the report.

He then began calling the Oxford Police Department station in an attempt to reach the chief, and was transferred to the chief’s voicemail.

Sizemore was arrested outside his home and charged with two counts of telecommunications harassment, a first-degree misdemeanor, and one count of menacing, a fourth-degree misdemeanor. Speaking to Today, Detective Sergeant Adam Price of the Oxford Police Department said that if he’s found guilty, Sizemore faces a maximum $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail for each count of telecommunications harassment; for the menacing charge, Sizemore faces a $250 fine and up to 30 days in jail.

“It was disruptive,” Price told the outlet. “This is a K-5 school so there is not an abnormal amount of homework.”

Meanwhile, Sizemore clarified in a voicemail to Today that “most” of the accusations weren’t true. “I’m a single dad of a boy and a girl and I’m just trying to do the best I can and that’s all I can do,” he said. “People make mistakes.”

A spokesperson for the Talawanda School District in Oxford added that it has no additional information beyond what has been stated in the police report. “I will share that we have received similar calls and messages to those received by the Oxford Police Department, to both our superintendent and the principal at Kramer Elementary,” they told the outlet.

Sizemore’s court date is scheduled for 28 March.