Dougherty school officials address substitute teacher misconduct allegation

ALBANY — Dougherty County School system Superintendent Ken Dyer and former Superintendent David “Butch” Mosely answered questions Tuesday about the arrest of two school system employees this year, including a substitute teacher and an assistant principal, on sexual assault charges against at least two students.

The interview came one week after an Open Records request by The Albany Herald to see the personnel file of former Dougherty High School substitute teacher Matthew Jermaine Rouse. Rouse was arrested in May and charged with three counts of sexual assault after reportedly being caught on camera having sex with a 10th-grade male student in the band room storage area at Dougherty High.

According to his personnel file, Rouse had been investigated by the DCSS Police Department for allegations of sexual assault in 2013.

Another DCSS employee, former Monroe High School Assistant Principal Horace Bentley, was arrested in September and charged with two counts sexual assault of a male student after a cellphone video surfaced of Bentley allegedly putting his hand down the boy’s pants.

Bentley’s file also revealed past investigations of misconduct. Bentley was accused and investigated in 2014 and 2016.

According to the Dougherty County School System Police Department incident report, after Rouse was investigated in 2013, then-Monroe Principal Valerie Thomas “advised Mr. Rouse he had to leave Monroe and could not return.”

Rouse did not return to Monroe, but instead went to work at Lake Park Elementary School in August of 2016, before going to Dougherty High School in April of 2017. One month later he was arrested.

Dyer and Mosely were asked to explain how both Rouse and Bentley continued to be employed by the school system after investigations of sexual misconduct.

“As I have said, I was wrong,” Mosely said. “In the Bentley case, Vinson Davis, who in my opinion is one of the best principals we have in this system, was convinced that there was nothing to this. J.C. Phillips (former DCSS assistant police) was convinced. As it turns out, Phillips and Davis were crossed up, but that was knowledge I got later. Based on Davis’ strong feelings and based on what J.C. said, that even though the student was convincing but he didn’t have enough to go with, I chose to allow him (Bentley) or recommend him (for contract renewal with DCSS as an assistant principal) again. Was that a mistake? Yes. But, it was an honest mistake.”

Mosely explained that he erred on the side of the employee because of past experiences.

“If you look at my track record, there has never been any administrator that was more aggressive with dealing with something when I had the facts,” Mosely said. “I have never had a problem pulling the trigger, but I do have a compassion for employees and I tend to lean towards the employee’s side because I have seen so many instances where accusations were made that were unfounded that could actually ruin somebody’s career.

“This is on my conscience, now that I have made a mistake, and it’s something that I have to live with. Now, as far Rouse goes, when he was told to leave Monroe and if I signed a separation notice, how in the hell did he get back in there?”

Rouse’s personnel file contained no such separation notice, and according to Dougherty County School System Human Resources Director Jill Addison, substitutes are not given such notices, and only if they were specifically flagged by their principal for some sort of infraction would their name be removed from the substitute teacher pool.

“Subs don’t have, technically, letters of separation,” Addison said. “They are at-will employees. They go to a school if their name is in the pool. They can pick up for that job or not pick up for that job. If there is not anything that is requested from a principal, such as if they are continually late or if they are not fit for an elementary school that comes into the human resources office, their name will remain active.”

According to Rouse’s file, he was told to leave Monroe, but there was no mention about his name being flagged in any way to prevent him from teaching at another school within the system.

Dyer was asked about the flagging of substitute teachers, or anyone within the system, that have been investigated or been the subject of disciplinary action.

The superintendent said that after the arrest of two employees, the school board is looking deeper into its personnel files in an attempt to prevent future incidents of sexual assault by staff on students.

“We are making sure that we go through our personnel records and contact our principals so that when we have a case, like Matthew Rouse, where the principal asks them to leave and not come back, we need to know why,” Dyer said. “H.R. (human resources) will then evaluate it to determine if it was some sort of personality conflict or if it was something that happened at the school, so that person can be flagged in our personnel management system to not allow that person to be rehired. That way, the person would not even pop up as an available substitute.”

Dyer would not specifically confirm a reported ongoing negotiation between the school system’s insurance carrier and the student (whose name was supplied but is being withheld by The Herald) allegedly caught on camera with Rouse at Dougherty High School, in which the student’s attorney has asked for $1 million.

“That is a pending legal matter, and as a matter of fact, we are not even in negotiations,” Dyer said. “Our insurance carrier is handling that on behalf of GSBA (Georgia School Boards Association).”

Asked if he would confirm that the student asked for $1 million, Dyer responded, “I can’t confirm that either.”

Rouse currently faces felony criminal charges but has not yet been indicted, according to Dougherty County court records.

A call was placed to Dougherty County District Attorney Greg Edwards Tuesday as to why Rouse’s case has not come up for indictment, but that call was not immediately returned.