Image Credit: Tennessee Comptroller of The Treasury
The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –
The practice of “passing the trash” with regard to Tennessee teachers is still happening since the state’s last report on educator sexual misconduct allowing abusers to move onto new schools, or districts, with their teaching licenses intact and their background checks clean.
Published in 2018, the report highlighted the findings of a 2016 national investigation of educator sexual misconduct in schools which gave Tennessee an F. The investigation looked particularly at each state’s efforts to reduce the incidence of educators with a history of sexual misconduct from being moved from one school to another without repercussions.
The report defined “educator sexual misconduct” as a broad range of inappropriate behaviors involving teachers in schools that serve grades preK through 12 toward a student or former student.
While some behaviors constitute criminal acts, such as rape, many others do not meet the standard for illegal activity but are clearly “grooming” behavior which works to gradually desensitze a victim so that a predator can gain their trust, and ultimately violate them.
To be employed by a public school district in Tennessee, a teacher must undergo a background check which involves fingerprinting and a criminal history records check which is conducted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Background checks only catch those who have already been prosecuted for sexual misconduct so their use, while important, is not a failsafe. Because of this, some Tennessee school districts may conduct periodic background checks on those currently employed in their districts. Metro Nashville Public Schools and Shelby County Schools are two districts with just such a policy.
Tennessee school districts must also consult three state registries during the hiring process. These are the Department of Children’s Services (DCS) Child Abuse Registry, the Department of Health’s Vulnerable Persons Registry, and the Sex Offender Registry maintained by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
All school employees are required by state law to report child abuse, including sexual abuse, and must complete child abuse training programs every year.
Child sexual abuse prevention education is also mandated by law for Grades K-12.
However, Tennessee does not have a law that criminalizes sexual misconduct by educators specifically. Instead, perpetrators could be charged under TCA 39-13-527 which classifies sexual battery by an authority figure as unlawful sexual contact if the victim was thirteen years of age or older at the time of the offense but less than eighteen, a Class C felony.
Tennessee also does not criminalize or define the grooming of minors for sexual abuse.
Last year, a former Blount County PE teacher and coach Joseph Dalton pled guilty to several charges of offensive touching assault stemming from five instances at two separate elementary schools. Dalton chose to resign in September of 2023 once an investigation was underway.
Dalton had a record of misconduct dating back to 2005 and yet he was simply shuffled around despite school resource officers, parents, students, nurses, and even an assistant principal all made complaints about his behavior.
It was only after camera footage was reviewed, corroborating five separate incidents, that District Attorney Ryan Desmond filed charges.
Dalton was indicted on an offense that criminalizes physical contact made intentionally that someone would find “extremely offensive or provocative” but which doesn’t make a distinction between adults and children.
When Dalton was sentenced earlier this year, he received what some in the community deemed a “slap on the wrist.”
While pleading guilty to all five charges of offensive touching, Dalton was sentenced to just six months of probation, the maximum allowed under the law, with the possibility of having his record wiped clean.
The judge in the case granted Dalton a judicial diversion meaning that once his probation is completed, his case could be expunged from public record.
According to Desmond, “Tennessee criminal laws on sexual battery require contact with the “intimate parts” of a victim. None of the videos or subsequent evidence for these allegations showed that the teacher in question had touched the “intimate parts” of any of the students involved.”
“While the teacher’s conduct was concerning and inappropriate, it did not qualify as sexual battery or any other sexual offense under current Tennessee law,” stated Desmond who supports a change to Tennessee law making penalties for such misconduct stiffer.
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
One Response
Police do same.