A Pigeon Force principal who allowed a football coach to use a middle school teaching gig to put a former college teammate with a history of sexual misconduct on his high school coaching staff is stepping down, according to The Knoxville News Sentinel.
But, according to the paper, he’ll still get a paycheck.
“With parents and concerned citizens organizing a protest next week outside his school, Principal Scott Hensley announced he has decided to step down as principal of Pigeon Forge Middle School, via a statement released by Sevier County Schools,” the paper reported.
“Despite what his own boss called a string of ‘mistakes’ by Hensley in the hiring of a teacher now accused of trying to lure a 13-year-old girl to his middle school office to show her naked photographs, the school system is allowing Hensley to fill an administrative job that wasn’t supposed to be filled and funded until next school year.”
Hensley will serve as attendance coordinator for the remainder of the school year, Sevier County Schools’ attorney Chris McCarty told the paper.
“The district had plans to add the position of attendance coordinator in next year’s budget, so Hensley’s placement (in that job) will simply provide an early start to the expansion of that work,” The Knoxville News Sentinel quoted McCarty as saying.
These developments occur after a Sevier County Board of Education meeting on Monday “failed to quell public outcry over the handling by Hensley and school system administrators of the hiring – and eventual firing – of Pigeon Forge Middle School physical education teacher Daniel Allen Turner [pictured above],” the paper reported.
“Turner, 40, was indicted in December in Sevier County Circuit Court on an attempted solicitation of a minor charge for allegedly describing in graphic detail nude photographs of women on his cell phone to a group of middle school female students in the cafeteria in October and trying to lure one of them – a 13-year-old girl – to his office to view more,” The Knox News Sentinel reported.
“Turner got his job despite the fact he had been fired from a teaching job at LaFollette Elementary School in 2017 for sexually inappropriate behavior with students and sexual harassment of female teachers.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
