Gwinnett teacher quits after affair with student
AJC exclusive: 1 alleged tryst happened in classroom during school hours
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Teacher of the Year at Shiloh High School has resigned after admitting to having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student, according to records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Keenon Aampay Hall, 29, left a promising career as an English teacher at the Gwinnett County school amid allegations that she seduced a senior who came to her for homework help. An investigative file on the case compiled by the school system’s human resources division contains the student’s accounts of sexual trysts at a hotel, a friend’s home and in the teacher’s classroom during school hours. The report also says that pornography was found on Hall’s Gwinnett County schools laptop.
The student, a player on Shiloh’s football team who is to graduate Friday, claimed that Hall gave him gifts and pressured him to commit to their six-month relationship by giving her a baby, according to the file. When he declined, the student’s family said, Hall gave him a failing grade, prompting him to report the relationship to school officials.
“The allegation of the inappropriate behavior came to light because the teacher decreased the student’s grade,” Gwinnett schools spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.
Gwinnett County Public Schools police are investigating the incident. The governor recently signed a new law making it illegal for teachers to have sex with students, even if the sex is consensual. In addition, the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, which has the authority to revoke Hall’s teaching certificate, is scheduled to review the complaint next week.
Hall, elected by her colleagues as Shiloh’s Teacher of the Year, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
“I am very disturbed by this situation, I think she should have been terminated,” said Ericka Pender, the teen’s mother, from her North Carolina home. “She wanted the relationship to go further and was threatening my son. She said she was going to make him fail.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is not publishing the name of the student because it does not generally identify victims of sexual crimes.
Sid Camp, executive director of Gwinnett’s Division of Human Resources, told the state that Hall “admitted to having a sexual relationship with the student.” Hall wrote a brief statement to the school district saying that it was a “consenual relationship,” misspelling the word. She said at least one other teacher knew about the romance.
Connie Hall said her daughter is a stellar teacher admired by peers who went out of her way to help students learn. Keenon Hall went to Shiloh in 2004 as a substitute and worked her way from a teacher’s assistant to a respected certified teacher and cheerleading coach, her mother said. She said her daughter eventually became overwrought with stress caused by mouthy teens, pushy parents and administrators who failed to support hard-working teachers. She began to lose sleep and shed hair over her $35,600-a-year job, her mother said.
“She loved teaching and thought she could change the world,” said Hall, who says she tried to push her daughter to seek a higher-paying profession. “My daughter didn’t have any inappropriate relationship with no under-aged student. She resigned for medical reasons, that’s what her paperwork shows.”
The student recently told Shiloh administrators in a written statement: “One day in October I came after school for some extra studying with my teacher Kennon Hall ... She began touching me on my leg and then asked me when I was going to let her molest me. ... We began to laugh, then she asked me again, this time handing me a phone number and asked me to call. ...”
According to the file, the student said that the teacher once paid for a cab to pick him up and take him to a hotel.
“We entered the room ... then she gave me some vodka and ask me do I enjoy drinking?” he wrote. “I told her lies about being a good drinker, but honeslty after one drink I was done. She began feeling my man parts and we had sex.”
The teen also told administrators that Hall gave him cash, a cell phone and had sex with him in a classroom, an encounter the teacher denies. The student said the teacher eventually turned on him because he didn’t want to get too serious. “What made Kennon Hall mad ... is the fact that I would not give her a baby.”
Hall’s peers had voted her Shiloh High Teacher of the Year in the fall. Her name was touted in school bulletins; she gave inspirational speeches; and was recognized at a Gwinnett County awards dinner with other top district teachers. Her parents, who attended the banquet, said they were proud but wondered why she never got her Teacher of the Year ring.
“She earned it,” her father, Dennis Hall, said. “I believe this is the action of Principal [Gwen] Tatum. It definitely opens the county up for a defamation lawsuit. ... How can seven years of teaching and a reputation be destroyed because of the word of one knucklehead? I think that’s wrong.”
Hall has a bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University and has completed her master’s work, her parents said. On an application for her Gwinnett job she wrote that she was “uniquely qualified” because she has “a passion for education and working with children.”
The student, now 18, relocated to Georgia from North Carolina to live with his uncle, Jason Pender, a football coach at Shiloh High. Ericka Pender allowed her son to leave home so he could focus on academics his senior year and graduate instead of getting distracted by old friends in Winston-Salem.
Coach Pender said his nephew had been dating a teenager at school and didn’t seem any more stressed than most seniors trying to get into college. “I wondered how he got the cell phone when he was not working,” Pender said. He grew concerned when the teen’s progress report in English “went from an A to a D or F.”
The student has accepted a full scholarship playing football at a North Carolina university. His excitement over graduation, however, is tempered with the buzz of students who giggle about the affair with Hall, his mother said.
“Everyone talking about it bothers him,” Pender said. “I’m ready for him to graduate, come back home and go to college so this can be behind him.”
How we got the story
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter D. Aileen Dodd received a tip from a source about reports of a teacher-student relationship at Shiloh High. Dodd sent a letter to Gwinnett County Public Schools requesting a copy of the teacher’s personnel file, the incident investigation and referral letter to the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. She later interviewed the parents of the teacher under investigation, family members of the student, other students and the Gwinnett County District Attorney for the story.
LINK TO PHOTO OF TEACHER:
http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett-teacher-quits-after-536249.html
May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008