" Clarence Hicks and Eubie Lewis, the two teachers from Miller Grove High School in DeKalb County who are accused of having sex with a 17-year-old female student at Lewis’s Stone Mountain home on the night of February 22, were released from jail on bond Tuesday.

It turns out that Lewis is already awaiting trial in another criminal case.

Authorities in Virginia had issued a fugitive warrant for Lewis last year. He was wanted on a charge of Possession of Marijuana with Intent to Distribute. When they located him in DeKalb County, Georgia, in August, they had him arrested and brought to Virginia.

They released Lewis in time for him to return to DeKalb County and report to Miller Grove High School for the 2006-2007 school year. And he continued to teach.

“We never knew,” said DeKalb Schools Spokesman Dale Davis on Tuesday. “It’s the responsibility of the teacher to tell us, if that teacher has been convicted of a crime. And Lewis is innocent until proven guilty.”

Yet in the DeKalb County case, the DeKalb County School Superintendent immediately suspended both Lewis and Hicks, with pay, and may fire them, after an administrative investigation, regardless of whether they are found guilty of having sex with the student.

The DeKalb County School System released a statement Monday that said, "It is the procedure of the district to remove (teacher) from the school until an internal administrative investigation is completed…. We will never tolerate inappropriate behavior from members of our staff."

Lewis teaches Special Education and is a baseball coach. Hicks, police say, is a psychology teacher. They are each charged with a felony -- Sexual Assault Against Persons Under [Their] Supervision.

Hicks is also charged with a misdemeanor, Furnishing Alcoholic Beverages to a Minor.

The magistrate judge who granted them bond remarked from the bench that Lewis had confessed to police that he had had sex with the student that night.

Lewis and Hicks sat next to each other in court, both of them handcuffed. Lewis looked down and shook his head. Hicks, responding to the magistrate judge who was considering his request for bond, said, “I don’t feel like I’m a danger to society… I’m not going anywhere,” promising that he will appear at all subsequent court proceedings in the case.

“I think it’s really sad,” said Erica Ray, the parent of two daughters who attend Miller Grove. “I really think it’s sad. Because we, as parents, send our children to school thinking that they will be safe…. And then he [Lewis] is awaiting trial [in the Virginia case] and he’s teaching our students. Teaching our children.”

Erica Ray is a hair stylist at First Impressions Hair Salon, just down the street from Miller Grove High School. The arrests were the talk of the salon all day.

"How many other students have been subjected to this man, these men?” Ray wondered. “And what else have they done? I'm sure it didn't just happen last week…. Children at 17, young ladies, don’t know who they are at 17, let alone to be smart enough to make a decision like that with anybody, grown or not. But for it to be her teacher!”

DeKalb County police said Tuesday that, so far, no other students have come forward claiming to be victims of either one of the teachers.

It was not immediately clear how the case came to the attention of DeKalb County police. A police spokesman said that someone with the DeKalb County Schools police told the county police about the allegations. But a spokesman for the school system said that DeKalb County police initiated the investigation.

Many students can't believe the charges against the men.

"I was shocked,” Freshman Marcus Eccles said. “That was my baseball coach,” Eccles added, referring to Lewis. “And I didn't know. I was really shocked."

"The state has an interest in protecting school children," the magistrate judge said from the bench Monday night, explaining the charges to one of the teachers. "You're a school teacher and you're alleged with having taken a child away from school grounds, getting her intoxicated and having sex with her. That's what the allegation is. So the state says we have an interest in protecting children."

The judge ordered Hicks, 28, and Lewis, 29, to stay away from the student they’re accused of assaulting.

"I just think it is morally wrong for teachers to set a bad example,” said William Arnay, a DeKalb County resident. “Students look up to teachers."

At Lewis’s home Tuesday afternoon, a young man who appeared to be in his teens answered the door and identified himself as a relative. He said he did not know whether Lewis had hired an attorney yet, and then said no one would have any comment.

At Hicks’ home, a reporter who approached heard adult voices from inside, laughing and chatting, until the reporter knocked on the door, when the people inside suddenly went silent. No one answered the door.

John Grant of the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, which issues educators the teaching certificates they need in order to teach, told 11Alive News Tuesday that

of the dozens of cases against teachers that the Commission hears every month, an average of five of the cases involve teachers who have been accused of inappropriate relations with students.

“The Commission is very intolerant of inappropriate relations with students,” Grant said.

Teachers who have had sex with students have their certificates revoked. They can no longer teach anywhere in Georgia.

Teachers who have had other inappropriate contact face punishments ranging from reprimands to lengthy suspensions.

Grant said, for example, that there have been cases of teachers posting personal web pages on Internet sites popular with young people, such as myspace.com, that contain profanities and other objectionable material. Students find out about the teachers’ adult-oriented personal web pages and tell each other. Once word gets out, the teachers end up being punished by the Professional Standards Commission.

Grant said it’s also not uncommon for the Commission to reprimand teachers for sending inappropriate text messages to students’ cell phones, or to their instant messaging accounts.

“The majority of the cases are not criminal cases” involving police investigations, charges and trials, Grant said. Often, he said, the cases of inappropriate contact involve teachers who, the Commission believes, have been caught “testing” students, to see how receptive the students may be to more explicit sexual advances and, eventually, sexual contact.

http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=93367