BOONE, N.C. — Authorities have accused a janitor at a North Carolina university of peeping on students in a residence hall bathroom after a cell phone was found in a vent.

A statement from Appalachian State University said campus police received a report on Oct. 15 about the cell phone being found in a vent of a third-floor bathroom in Eggers Residence Hall, news outlets reports.

Officials at the school said they started investigating immediately, and by the next day had inspected the entire building. Additional measures were taken to ensure there was no other access to bathroom vents.

After retrieving the phone, police arrested Jerry Alan McGlannery, 49, of Wilkes County and charged him with secret peeping. McGlannery is on leave pending an investigation. According to the school, McGlannery has not worked on campus since Oct. 15 and is not allowed to return to campus.

Appalachian State is located in Boone, approximately 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Charlotte.

Bus drivers strike in Wake County

RALEIGH (AP) — Bus drivers for North Carolina’s largest school system called in sick on Friday to protest working conditions, prompting administrators to urge parents to arrange their own transportation and warn of similar problems next week.

Officials with the Wake County Public School System said 400 of the 600 buses operated by the system were running, news outlets reported. Bus drivers have said concerns about being overworked and underpaid haven’t been addressed.

Many parents said their children walked to school, or they were driven to school when their buses didn’t show up.

The Wake County system has 160,000 students, and up to half of them ride the bus in a normal year.

Wake County Superintendent Cathy Moore and school board chairman Keith Sutton sent a message to staff members.

“The pay and salary structure for the work we do is not adequate,” the message said. “Our bus drivers shone a harsh light on this reality.”

Moore and Sutton also said many drivers have to run as many as six routes a day without receiving extra compensation. They said most school staffers are in the same situation.

The system also told parents that bus service for Monday is uncertain and asked families to plan for that possibility.

Tax preparer sent to prison for fraud conspiracy

GREENSBORO (AP) — A North Carolina tax return preparer was sentenced to nearly two years in prison for conspiring to defraud the IRS, prosecutors said.

Court documents and statements made in court showed that from 2012 through 2017, Andrea Pasley of Durham conspired with two others to prepare fraudulent tax returns, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of North Carolina.

Returns prepared by the conspirators claimed false education credits or dependents or manipulated the clients’ income to qualify for larger earned income tax credits, the news release said. Under the scheme, some clients were charged up to $3,000 for preparing returns.

Based on an analysis of the falsely claimed education credits, the conspirators caused a tax loss of approximately $1.2 million, officials said.

The co-conspirators, Karen Jones and Audrey Odom, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the IRS and were sentenced earlier this year to 22 months and 15 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in the conspiracy.

In addition to prison, a judge ordered Pasley to serve three years of supervised release and to pay approximately $1,264,493 in restitution to the U.S.

Police: Handgun found in classroom

WINSTON-SALEM (AP) — Police in North Carolina say that an unloaded handgun was found in an elementary school classroom after it fell out of a student’s pocket.

The Winston-Salem Police Department issued a news release saying the gun was discovered around noon on Friday at Mineral Springs Elementary School.

The release said that the gun had fallen out of a 12-year-old student’s pocket and was immediately confiscated by a teacher. Further investigation revealed that the gun had been placed in the student’s hooded sweatshirt by another student when he was out of the classroom.

Police say the handgun was inoperable and unloaded. No one was hurt.

Some students are facing disciplinary action but police said that no charges were being filed.