Buckhead mom dives into trash after son’s work tossed

Science projects require much time, creativity and thought from young students.

They typically don’t require a police investigation. Or prompt mothers to go Dumpster diving.

But both happened last week after a Sutton Middle School janitor accidentally tossed a student’s science project into the trash.

The school’s principal, Audrey Sofiano, told police that the student’s mother, Christy Roe, became so upset and disruptive that staffers had to ask her to leave, according to an Atlanta police report.

Roe, 51, a real-estate investor who lives in Buckhead, denies that she was asked to leave, but acknowledges that she was angry and climbed into a Dumpster in search of her son’s project.

“I got in the Dumpster in my high heels,” Roe said. “I got in and out of the Dumpster like an Olympic gymnast.”

The incident happened on Nov. 17 at Sutton Middle, on Powers Ferry Road in northwest Atlanta.

Roe brought the science project, which was about the concept of momentum, to the science teacher’s door and left it there on the floor because she didn’t want to go in the classroom, she told police, according to the report.

It was in a cardboard box and included a “Newton’s cradle,” a device made of silver balls that act as pendulums and are attached by string to a frame.

She left and returned 10 minutes later to find the box missing.

School officials discovered that the custodian had picked up the box as he walked past the room, believing it was trash, the report said. Roe caught up to him at the Dumpster.

“He stated that he was completely surprised when he was confronted by an unknown lady at the Dumpster ordering him to climb into the Dumpster,” Atlanta Police Investigator H. Nowell wrote in a police report.

The custodian wouldn’t go in, so Roe took the plunge herself. “I did it for my son,” Roe said. “I also did it because I knew it wasn’t right.”

She never found the Newton’s cradle, valued at $25, but she did find a pedestal that she had glued to it — proof to her that someone stole the cradle.

No arrests were made in the case because police could not determine what happened to the missing item. Roe’s son, a seventh-grader, was unfazed by the incident.

“He doesn’t even care,” Roe said. “All he cares about is video games.”

Plus, he got full credit for the science project, said Atlanta Public Schools spokeswoman Kimberly Green.