A Creekview High School teacher has been arrested for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student who attends the school, authorities say.
According to a press release from the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, they were informed Tuesday by the Cherokee County School District of allegations of misconduct by 31-year-old Adam Blake Bearden, a special education teacher at Creekview since 2010. On Tuesday evening, Sheriff's deputies searched Bearden's Ball Ground home.
Sheriff's deputies believe the relationship lasted for three months and took place off-campus.
The school district said in a press release that after they conducted their own investigation of the initial claims against Bearden, which began Monday, they immediately contacted the Sheriff's Office.
The release said that Bearden had been "reassigned to a non-school workplace" before the start of classes Wednesday morning.
Bearden turned himself in Wednesday afternoon and is currently being held without bond at the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center. He is being charged with four counts of sexual assault.
According to Bearden's personnel file with Cherokee County Schools, before coming to Creekview Bearden had been a biology teacher at Georgia College and State University from 2003-04. He earned his master's degree in biology from that institution in July, 2004. He earned dual bachelor's degrees from Emory University in 2002 for biology and environmental studies.
From 2002-07, Bearden owned his own mechanic shop, Bearden Motor Company. In his personnel file, he listed "career change" as the reason that he left this line of work.
I very much agree with the speed at which they are handled. In our experiance, with our then kindergartener it was a terrible experiance dealing with BOE who tried to distance themselves as far as possible from any truth of what happened and only allowing the school "police" to investigate the incident. We had TEACHERS and PRINCIPALS who did VERY wrong and all supported eachother and their twisted web of lies. We are also praying for this family as they go through their tough time.
Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. Matt 7:2-5 "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged. I feel that all details should be found out before just assuming someone is guilty. That's all. No one in this world is perfect....If we were we wouldn't have to turn to GOD to help us. I was also raised to know that there is always two sides to every story and that there is only one judge that we have to account to.
That said, Georgia has some interesting laws such as the "age of consent" being 16. Georgia's age of consent is ridiculously low and needs to be changed to 18. Until then, any adult can prey upon our children aged 16-17 without fear punishment. Unless there is a law prohibiting teacher-student relationships, he'll walk even if he committed the acts. I know in other states it isn't against the law as long as the student isn't in the teacher's class. What is Georgia's law? Here's an article from 2009 regarding such as case in Georgia: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/lawmaker-worry-teachers-sex-students/story?id=9157141
Let's not jump to conclusions here. For all we know, these two could be hopelessly in love or this guy could be taking advantage of a teenage girl. The point is, we don't know. Wait for some more facts to come out before we run this guy out of town on a rail. Best, Justin