Teachers charged with sex crimes were vetted

School officials: ‘We’re doing everything we can’ to prevent abuse.

In the past month, four teachers at Gwinnett County schools have been accused of sexually assaulting students.

Allegations in police reports and warrants include molestation, groping, rape and a two-and-a-half year sexual relationship. The question that loomed: Could anything have been done to prevent this?

The four teachers, three of whom taught at Gwinnett County public schools and one who taught at private Providence Christian Academy, are a small minority of the district’s and schools’ faculty. Gwinnett County Public Schools employs 12,000 teachers, and Providence Christian Academy, a K-12 school in Lilburn, employs 79.

Gwinnett County Public Schools has a stringent background check process each potential teacher goes through before they’re hired, including fingerprinting; a Georgia Bureau of Investigation background check; an FBI background check; and a record check from the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, the state’s teacher certification board.

The professional standards record check ensures that the district is aware of any previous formal ethics complaints filed against an educator.

Previous ethics complaints that have been found to have no probable cause are expunged from a teacher’s record, said John Grant, the commission’s chief investigator.

Three of the four teachers arrested — Michael Henderson, Villie Jones and Ronnie Jackson — are certified with the commission. Derren Evans, a former long-term substitute teacher at Providence Christian Academy, is not certified with the commission. While the vast majority of public school teachers are required to be certified, private and religious schools can waive that requirement.

Providence Christian Academy teachers are generally certified through organizations including the Southern Association of College and Schools and the Association of Christian Schools International, spokesman Stephen Daniels said. Its private school status also means it does not have access to the GBI and FBI background checks that Gwinnett County Public Schools does.

Providence uses an employee screening company called Praesidium. That service’s background check includes searches of the National Sex Offender Registry; multistate criminal records; motor vehicle reports; and a Social Security number background trace.

All four teachers passed the required background checks for their jobs. Nothing found by officials at Gwinnett County Public Schools or Providence Christian Academy during the hiring process caused concern.

Required ethics training and new teacher training in Gwinnett County also cover what constitutes an inappropriate student-teacher relationship, sexual assault abuse and harassment. Ethics “reminders” pop up on teachers’ web portal home screens every day, Bernard Watson, spokesman for the county school system said.

Under Georgia law, all teachers and school personnel are required to tell law enforcement if they have “reasonable cause to believe child abuse has occurred.”

During the 2015-2016 school year, four GCPS teachers were arrested and charged with sexual crimes involving students. The allegations against the educators included molestation and inappropriate sexual relationships.

“We are doing everything we can to prevent something like this happening again,” Watson said.

Providence Christian Academy provides training that covers topics including “signs of abuse, how to protect children from abuse, and how to protect themselves,” Daniels, the academy’s spokesman, said. Teachers, staff and volunteers are also given annual training on their responsibilities as mandatory reporters of abuse.

While Providence Christian Academy does not have a social media policy detailing how teachers should handle contact with students, the school advises teachers to “be wise” in their interactions with students, Head of School Sean Chapman said.

Evans, the Providence substitute teacher, allegedly asked a student to send him nude photos on Snapchat.

While criminal cases against Henderson, Jones and Jackson work their way through the court system, their futures in the classroom are up to the Professional Standards Commission. Because Evans was never certified as a teacher, there is no certification for the commission to revoke.

Teaching certifications are not automatically suspended upon a teacher’s arrest, but when educators are charged with a crime, their schools must file an ethics complaint against them within 90 days, Grant, the professional standards chief investigator, said.

Those complaints are investigated, and investigations must be completed 60 days after they begin.

If the teacher is found to be in violation of the commission’s code of ethics, a punishment is handed down. That is almost always a revocation of the teacher’s certification when the case involves sexual contact with a student, Grant said.

When the certification is revoked, a teacher cannot move to another state and get certified there, and their violation is reported to a national certification agency.

Teachers whose certifications are revoked can petition to reapply after three years, but Grant said it is very rare for the commission to grant that petition.

“I only know of two occasions when they’ve been granted permission to reapply for certification, and I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” Grant said.

The Gwinnett County teachers charged with sexual assault in May are:

Michael “Mikey” Henderson, a former math teacher and assistant football coach at Parkview High School, has been accused of a two-and-ahalf year sexual relationship with a female student. The student, now 18, was in Henderson’s class. A school clerk is also being investigated in connection with this case.

Villie Jones, a former band director at South Gwinnett High School, has been accused of raping a student multiple times and having sexual relationships with multiple students.

Ronnie Jackson, a former physical education teacher and track coach at Meadowcreek High School, is accused of groping and kissing a female student’s genitals.

Derren Evans, a former assistant football coach and long-term substitute teacher at Providence Christian Academy, is accused of groping and forcibly kissing a student on multiple occasions and asking her for nude photos on Snapchat.

Jackson is free on $22,200 bond. Evans, Jones and Henderson are being held without bond.