WTOC, Savannah, Georgia, news, weather and sports | Montgomery County Guidance Counselor Arrested for Sexual Assault
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A high school guidance counselor is in trouble in Montgomery County.
An investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation ended with 34-year-old Carrie O'Connor being arrested and indicted on sexual assault charges involving a 16-year-old student. The arrest happened Monday night, but the investigation started back in March.
O'Connor posted 20,000 dollar bond late Tuesday afternoon.
Rumors of an affair between the teenage boy and the guidance counselor have been swirling for most of the year and the GBI was called into investigate. Now, some are questioning how the school district has handled the case.
It's now the talk of Montgomery County and the small town of Mount Vernon. O'Connor, who is estranged from her husband, charged with sexual misconduct involving a 16-year-old male student. "This pretty much took me aback, " Montgomery High School principal Luke Smith told WTOC.
Smith couldn't comment, but told us as of today, O'Connor is still working at the school. "She's not here today, but she has been," Smith said. "She's been here since school started."
"It's ripped this small community apart," said Jackson Posey. "The school board is charged with two things. They are supposed to provide a quality education for the young people of this community and a safe environment. With their failure to act, they have jeopardized both those environments."
Posey had two sons go through the Montgomery School District, but says the arrest and alleged affair is no surprise to him. "It began with street talk," he said. "You know, what I heard at the school."
Rumors about the alleged sexual misconduct started to swirl back in January. In March, calls came to WTOC, so we contacted the GBI who said they were investigating and would have something in a week. Four months passed and an arrest happened yesterday.
"All we were after was the truth," Posey said.
Posey and many other concerned parents are raising questions since O'Connor is still working at the school. Some think she should have been put on paid leave until the issue is resolved.
Instead, according to a letter from principal Smith to the parents of the 16-year-old boy, the student was dismissed from the high school and assigned to a different school to prevent any and all contact between the boy and O'Connor as requested by the GBI.
The parents refused and their lawyers sent a letter back to the principal demanding he be re-instated, which he was the next day.
This has all frustrated the public. "They blew it," Posey said. "They have had several opportunities to repair this and do something about it."
But there's more. The guidance counselor's mother is also the Montgomery County School District superintendent Dale Clark. "Bear in mind the mother-daughter relationship," Posey said. "She cannot come to a just decision on that."
According to GBI officers, the relationship between O'Connor and the 16-year-old student lasted from January to the end of July. The GBI began investigating O'Connor in March.
"She has the opportunity to bring students from campus behind closed doors," Posey said. "That's our concern."
"If she shows up here, as far as I can tell, she will be allowed to work until further notice," said Smith.
This is the official statement from the Montgomery County School District:
The complete attention of the legal system has yet to run its full course and until it does so, any further commentary at this time would obviously be premature and judgmental.
While this is all going on, a former teacher has reported O'Connor to the schools juvenile probation officer and to the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, who are investigating.
Reported by: Don Logana, dlogana@wtoc.com
