Grundy school board member to resign after arrest in text message lockdown

Kasey Anderson
Kasey Anderson
photo Kasey Anderson

Grundy County, Tenn., school board member Kasey Anderson said she plans to resign after her arrest for allegedly sending text messages that led to the entire school system going on a "soft lockdown" Monday morning.

The lockdown came after the principal at Swiss Memorial Elementary, a pre-K-8 school in Gruetli-Laager, Tenn., received information that a student was supposed to bring a gun to school, but it was not clear which school, the Grundy County Herald reported.

The text messages have not been released, but a police report states Herbie Hackworth contacted the schools about a text he received from Anderson, his grandson's mother. The text stated Anderson was not sending her son to school because she was concerned about a gun being brought on campus.

Anderson told officers the text was about a nightmare she had after talking about recent school shootings with family. "She stated she wasn't sure she was totally awake," the report states. She was charged with making false reports.

Anderson told the Times Free Press she wasn't sure what she could discuss, as she hadn't talked to her attorney yet, but she did speak out on Facebook.

"i [sic] DID NOT call and report anything about a kid and a gun to ANYONE," she wrote in a post to the Grundy County Advisory Committee Facebook page, of which she is an administrator.

She said she sent a text about her "own personal concerns and fears" and then called a family member to make sure the text was not misconstrued. That family member does not work for the school system.

Anderson previously was arrested for resisting arrest, coercion of a witness, public intoxication, disorderly conduct and indecent exposure. Those charges stemmed from a domestic incident at her home in Pelham, Tenn., on June 26.

The week before the June incident, Director of Schools Jessie Kinsey and then-school board Chairman Robert Foster filed a lawsuit against Anderson alleging defamation of character and intentional infliction of emotional distress. That case is not related to the domestic incident.

Kinsey and her attorney Eric Burnette allege Anderson knowingly posted false and defamatory statements on the Advisory Committee's Facebook page, about Kinsey and Foster in June. Those statements alleged that Kinsey and Foster covered up allegations of child abuse three times and created positions to get rid of whistleblowers without the approval of the school board.

That lawsuit, seeking a total of up to $500,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, is ongoing, Burnette said Wednesday. He said the case will go to trial or reach a settlement, hopefully sometime in the spring of 2018.

Anderson's attorney did not immediately return a request for comment.

A workshop meeting Tuesday night to discuss how Kinsey's performance should be evaluated by the board also was canceled. Kinsey said this was because a few board members requested it be postponed "due to the recent events that had unfolded."

Kinsey did not clarify what those events might be.

Additionally, Grundy County Sheriff Clint Shrum said the school board attorney and the county attorney will have to meet first before the director of schools can respond to a subpoena issued late last month.

They must do so "to make sure [family and education privacy laws] are complied with," Shrum said in a text message.

The subpoena, looking for any documents or reports of hazing, physical or sexual abuse, was served by the sheriff as part of the sheriff's office investigation into an attempted aggravated rape of a student.

Five football players have been charged in that case. They are accused of attempting to rape a 15-year-old teammate with the metal handle of a dust mop in the school's football fieldhouse on Oct. 11.

Kinsey said all of the incidents that should have been reported to the sheriff's office already had been reported as they occurred.

The Times Free Press obtained 105 pages of police reports involving students or staff at the school dating back to March 2015. Most relate to fights, vandalism, or possession of a weapon, alcohol or tobacco.

But some court records and police reports alleged assault or sexual assault, including a case that led to a former teacher pleading guilty to raping a 14-year-old student. Another report of sexual misbehavior between four boys and a female student involved two of the boys accused in the October rape attempt, and in a 2015 case, a Grundy County High School student admitted to molesting a 10-year-old girl on a school bus.

"Our search yielded nothing new that hadn't already been reported to [the sheriff's] office," Kinsey said in a statement to the Times Free Press on Tuesday. "The sheriff will have to explain any actions he did or did not take in regards to those reports."

Initially, Shrum and Kinsey were set to meet at some point Tuesday to discuss the subpoena, as well as the schools' resource officer's access to security camera footage, but that meeting did not happen because of the attorneys' decision, Shrum said. It's not clear when the attorneys will meet.

Last week, the resource officer's ability to access security camera footage without permission from the principal was cut off. Kinsey did not clarify why the access was taken away, and Shrum said the officer had never been required to seek permission in the past.

Kinsey said the camera monitors had been moved from the resource officer's office to the principal's office for two hours but were later returned.

The district plans to purchase additional monitors for the principal's office, Kinsey said, so that they can be watched when the resource officer is not at the school. The resource officer is contracted to work at all seven of the county's schools.

Contact staff writer Rosana Hughes at rhughes@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327. Follow her on Twitter @HughesRosana.

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