Bad Bad Teacher

(03/28/09 – Initial BadBadTeacher.com Report)

Ronald Boykin, 40, who taught a behavior program for struggling students at Donelson Middle School in Nashville, Tennessee has been arrested on rape and sex abuse charges dating back to 2005, when he was an educational assistant at Brainerd High School, in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Boykin was picked up when a records search conducted as part of a routine traffic stop revealed that Boykin was wanted on two counts of rape, one count of sexual battery by an authority figure and one count of attempted sexual battery by an authority figure.

Reportedly, Boykin passed three background checks by Metro Schools. These background checks did not detect the outstanding warrants because background checks run for school districts do not include warrants. Such information is available only to law enforcement officers in Tennessee.

Reportedly, Boykin has been returned to Hamilton County to face the old charges, however Nashville police say they have identified at least two Nashville students who say Boykin touched them. Nashville police are investigating more cases and are asking Donelson Middle parents to contact 862-7540 if they have any information regarding Boykin.

03/30/09 – More Charges, This Time In Nashville

Over the weekend Ronald Boykin was charged with three counts of sexual battery by an authority figure and two counts of statutory rape for alleged incidents at a school he’s been teaching at in Nashville for the past two years.

The alleged victims in Nashville are reportedly boys, ages 14 and 15-years-old. It is alleged that both boys were inappropriately touched by Boykin while at his home in Nashville

His arrest on the Nashville charges came just hours after he was released on bail on similar charges in Chattanooga.

Boykin is reportedly now facing a total of nine charges. He is scheduled to be back in Chattanooga to face four counts in Hamilton County on Friday.

WSMV TV reports that:

With just a couple of phone calls, Channel 4 uncovered a lot of clues that the school system background check apparently could not.

One of those clues is the teacher’s application with Metro. He wrote on his application that he had been under investigation for misconduct in the past.

Other clues come from what his old school system has to say. But they said no one from Metro ever called them.

WSMV also reports that it obtained with one call to Hamilton County schools both Boykin’s suspension letter that mentioned misconduct and Boykin’s own resignation letter that said he stepped down because the investigation was taking too long. Both documents are public records and available to anyone, including Nashville Metro School, which apparently did not even call Hamilton County School to check Boykin’s record before hiring him.

Both are public records.

03/31/09 – Metro Nashville Schools Forced to Resign

The Tennessean is reporting that three human resources workers for Metro Nashville Schools have been forced to resign in the wake of the Ronald Boykin scandal.

The Tennessean also reports that the director of 9-12 human resources was suspended for five days without pay and issued a written reprimand.

04/02/09 – Witness Mix Up Gets Charge Tossed Out

Prosecutors mixed up the testimonies of the alleged victims in the Nashville case against Ronald Boykin and as a result one charge against Ronald Boykin has been thrown out.

Prosecutors blamed the mix up on the warrants which did not name the victims, a move the prosecutor said was likely made to protect the families from the media publicity. That omission led the prosecutor to assign the wrong warrants to the boys’ testimony.

The judge dismissed a charge of sexual battery by an authority figure as a result of neither of the two boys testifing that Ronald Boykin had fondled him in a car while he was sitting in the passenger seat, as the warrant described.

The judge has sent three of the charges to the grand jury, dismissed one and will decide tomorrow whether the last charge is sent to the grand jury or dismissed.

Ronald Boykin remains held in the Nashville Metro Jail in lieu of bond.

08/17/09 – Grand Jury Indictment

Ronald Boykin has reportedly been indicted by a grand jury on 60 counts of statutory rape, rape without consent and sexual battery by an authority figure.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 3:20 pm and is filed under ME-UNKNOWN, Middle Schools, Tennessee. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.