A Tennessee high school teacher recognized as “teacher of the month” last year was charged last week with aggravated statutory rape after a months-long investigation into her “inappropriate physical contact” with an underage student.
Tenth-grade geometry teacher Casey McGrath, 28, was suspended with pay from her job at Chattanooga’s Central High School while authorities investigated alleged “inappropriate physical contact with a student that does not result in harm” of a “sexual nature” on May 1, 2022, according to the teacher’s personnel file reviewed by WTVC.
“Ms. McGrath was suspended without pay on March 31,” the Hamilton County School District’s Communications Officer Steve Doremus told Fox News Digital when asked for comment.
“She was not rehired for the current school year.”
An Aug. 14 indictment obtained by Fox News Digital accused the teacher of “unlawfully and knowingly engag[ing] in sexual penetration with a person of at least 13 years of age, but less than 18,” noting that she is “at least 10 years older than the victim.”
McGrath was arrested on Aug. 18 and has been released from jail after posting $10,000 bond; she will reappear in Hamilton County Criminal Court on Sept. 6 for her arraignment.
The teacher, who had also worked at nearby East Ridge Middle School, according to her personnel file, was elected by Central High School students as “teacher of the month,” according to an article in the school’s newspaper that has since been removed from its website.
Although it was difficult to do so during the COVID-19 pandemic, McGrath told her student interviewer, the best part of her day was “getting to interact with students and build relationships with them.”
Every school year, she said, she hoped her “students [would] believe in their own capability to do math” and “know [that she] care[d] about them as a person, not just a student.”
McGrath also volunteered as an assistant volleyball coach with the school, telling the student newspaper that “being able to spend time with students in a non-academic setting [gave] her the chance to get to know them even more.”
A student told the newspaper that McGrath was a “very kind teacher” who “took her time and made sure [he understood] what [he] was being taught during a difficult time for everyone (the start of the pandemic).”
“She’s a very involved teacher,” the high school junior said.
“I can tell she respected her students, which makes me have respect for her in turn.”
McGrath majored in mathematics at Lee University before getting her master’s degree in secondary education for mathematics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, according to the student article.
As of its publication in October 2021, she had taught for five years total, previously working at McGavock High School, and had been at Central High for two years.
Aggravated statutory rape, a class D felony, is punishable by two to 12 years in prison, under state sentencing guidelines.
I’ll wait, something stinks really bad here. There’s WAY too much of this happening. I think the student is pissed about something she said or did, and is doing this to punish her. We’ll see!
In order to make ANY case of this nature, you do need to have more than just a he-said-she-said accusation, and many times just circumstantial evidence. Any accusation from a student needs to be investigated. Because kids will be kids, and the best way to get back at a teacher, (for any number of reasons/excuses), is to accuse them of a sex crime. To add confusion, conviction by public opinion and social media has become all too common today and should not even be factored into the equation, (no pun intended). You need DIRECT, CREDIBLE evidence to support such an accusation. Without it, you’ve got NADA. Unfortunately, objectivity has taken a back seat in these types of cases.
I’m not taking the teachers’ side here. I’m just expressing that there’s been an accusation made – period. There has yet to be ANY credible evidence. The police evidently believe they have it, and they probably do, or the DA would never have had her arrested. It will all be presented in court. Yes, she’s probably going to jail, even on a first offense, and she probably has ruined a career as a teacher, (and as young as she is, w/ all those loans to still pay back).
However, if the prosecution CAN’T make their case, the accuser has a problem on their hands. Because if I were her, I would counter-sue for not only an exoneration of guilt, but also a re-establishment of my teaching license, (in other words, re-establishment as if it never happened). I would go to the Supreme Court if needed.
Very well said.