Education board revokes teaching licenses for four

The Arkansas Board of Education revoked the licenses of four teachers over violations of the state’s Educator Code of Ethics.

Each of the four Arkansas educators who permanently lost their licenses Monday were found to have violated the ethics standard that requires an educator to maintain a professional relationship with students both in and outside the classroom.

The four who no longer have licenses to teach in the state’s public schools are:

Steven Mark Noble, a high school principal in the Drew Central School District in Monticello. He was arrested Dec. 8, 2011, on an allegation of sexual indecency with a child by committing a sexual act on a Web camera in view of an undercover Arizona police officer whom Noble believed was a 14-year-old.

James Chad Green, a high school band director in the Bryant School District, who was accused by a parent of engaging in sexual behavior with a band student.

Andrew David Ray, a former Green Forest coach and teacher who was required to surrender his teaching license as part of an October plea agreement. Ray pleaded guilty to a third-degree battery charge in Carroll County Circuit Court. The state has no legal authority to accept a surrendered license, making it necessary for the State Education Board to revoke the license.

David Waldon Paschal, who was a teacher at Elkins High School. Paschal was earlier sentenced in Washington County Circuit Court to 10 years’ imprisonment for each of three sexual assault convictions, but in March the convictions were reversed. That’s when the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that a state law making it a crime for a school teacher to have sexual relationships with students 18 and older at the teacher’s school was unconstitutional.

The Education Board this week also suspended for two years the license of Janice Anita Dodson, who worked at Hellstern Middle School in Springdale, for violating the ethics standard that calls for teachers to refrain from possession of or being under the influence of alcohol or unauthorized drugs while on school premises.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 12 on 12/13/2012

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