Tennessee special education teacher accused of 'disturbing and unacceptable' behavior
BLOUNT COUNTY, Tn. — “Blount County Schools is working to dismiss a tenured teacher at Heritage High School over allegations of inappropriate and abusive behavior with special education students.
Blount County Schools Director of Schools Justin Ridge brought formal charges of dismissal against Kathryn "Katie" Goins at the district's meeting Thursday night. The charges include incompetence, inefficiency, neglect of duty, unprofessional conduct and insubordination over allegations dating back to 2020.”
“Goins started working for BCS in 2010 as an instructional assistant assigned to the Comprehensive Development Classroom for Intellectually Disabled (CDCI) program at Union Grove Middle School. In 2016, Goins was hired as a special education teacher within CDCI at Union Grove Middle School.”
“A human resources audit from winter 2024 uncovered files of a "sexual nature" concerning Goins from the past 10 years. The human resources supervisor said she was unaware of the 2020 case until she pulled the paper file for the 2024 audit. The audit did not provide any evidence of the Blount County Sheriff's Office being notified.
Documents show the allegations span the 2019-20 school year, but also include incidents from other periods. In August 2020, an instructional assistant emailed Union Grove Middle School principal John Webb with "urgent and confidential" concerns about Goins. This led to an investigation into unprofessional conduct.
The documents show Goins was accused of playing with/shaking her hair, which allegedly caused a male student to become sexually aroused. This behavior was reported to have happened more than 50 times. There were occasions when her co-workers allegedly told her it was wrong.
The document also said Goins was accused of touching a student's genitals and other inappropriate areas. One instructional assistant said Goins didn't use ‘proper bathroom techniques’ with the student and had contact with him while trying to get him to urinate. In another statement from an instructional assistant, they said Goins encouraged a student to masturbate and ordered the instructional assistant to ‘clean it up.’”
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