Former SHS Teacher License Revoked for Relationship with Student
Andrew Henson, 2021-2022 Teacher of the Year Loses License for Sexual Relationship with a Student
At last Thursday’s IOW School Board meeting, I mentioned that Andrew Henson had his teaching license revoked by the Virginia Department of Education in March 2023 for having an “inappropriate sexual relationship with … a junior at high school where the (he) taught during the 2019-2020 school year.” To my knowledge, this is the first public acknowledgment of the incident. No record of it can be easily found online or in any news outlet. IWCS, as a matter of policy, does not comment on personnel matters or matters involving specific students (more on this later).
Who is Andrew Henson?
The only information I could find on Andrew Henson is a Smithfield Times article announcing him as the Smithfield High School Teacher of the Year in December 2021. This was three months before a former student reported an inappropriate sexual relationship to IWCS in February 2022. From the article, Mr. Henson started teaching at Smithfield High School in 2014. He was also affiliated with the SHS Debate Team.
Inappropriate Sexual Relationship
On February 10, 2022, a former SHS student/graduate informed IWCS of an inappropriate sexual relationship with Andrew Henson during her 11th grade year (during the 2019-2020 school year). She provided IWCS with screenshots, pictures, and messages from Henson to corroborate the nature of the relationship. IWCS immediately started an investigation and informed Isle of Wight Sheriff’s Office of their investigation. On February 18, 2022, Henson resigned from his teaching position at SHS. On April 21, 2022 the School Board was provided a summary of the investigation via a memo. On May 16, 2022 the IWCS Superintendent (Dr. Thornton at the time) petitioned the Virginia Department of Education to revoke Henson’s teaching license.
At some point, Henson disputed the allegations of the petition, but it is unclear what parts of the allegations he refuted. He declined to request a hearing with the school board to fight the allegations. Still, he did offer to voluntarily cancel his teaching license. A license holder can request to “cancel” their teaching license. Presumably, this is done because it sounds better than having it taken away. In some legal instances, it shows a court that the accused is taking responsibility for their actions. Regardless, if a licensee requests to cancel their license, the VDOE still lists the reason for the cancellation. Henson ultimately did request VDOE cancel his license, but VDOE denied the cancellation request because Henson did not meet the requirements under the applicable state regulation.
On August 11, 2022 the school board conducted a hearing on the revocation petition and voted to accept the superintendent’s revocation petition. On January 27, 2023 the Superintendent’s Investigative Panel (a panel of school officials from various districts across the state) met to review the petition. Again, Mr. Henson declined to appear to provide a defense for himself. The panel recommended the VDOE revoke his license. VDOE accepted the recommendation and formally revoked Henson’s license on March 22, 2023 (almost 14 months after the initial report). Mr. Henson had 30 days to appeal the revocation, but there is no evidence that he decided to appeal.
IWCS and Commenting on Personnel Matters
IWCS maintains a policy of not commenting on personnel matters. In some cases this makes sense; for example, IWCS would not want to presuppose a disciplinary outcome before they have the opportunity to thoroughly investigate and there is something to be said for a presumption of innocence. However, once an employee has left the school district, IWCS has completed its investigation, and the VDOE has ruled on the issue and made the findings part of the public record; not commenting is a little extreme. IWCS invoked the “personnel exemption” when I FOIA’d for additional information or even asked IWCS to confirm or dispute the facts as I know them via FOIA from other state organizations. It is important to remember that FOIA does not preclude IWCS from commenting; they choose if/when to invoke an exemption to avoid commenting or providing information.
Investigating a School Employee for a Sexual Relationship with a Student
This is unquestionably challenging for a school division. As previously mentioned, they are responsible for protecting the employee from potential false accusations or misunderstandings. However, this has to be balanced with ensuring that a thorough investigation is conducted. In this situation, they should also do all they can to ensure there aren’t additional victims. Asking other employees about other victims is problematic because all school employees have a “duty to report” any child abuse (adults sleeping with minor students is abuse). If a school employee knowingly does not report abuse, they can face legal consequences as well as potentially losing their license. Obviously, asking other students is also problematic, especially without informing their parents. Lastly, the accused certainly has no incentive to further incriminate themselves. So, I am unsure how any investigation can say with any confidence that other students were not involved. For these reasons and IWCS’s unwillingness to publicly acknowledge the incident, I decided to go public with the incident in case there were potentially other victims.
Isle of Wight Sheriff’s Office Investigation of the Incident
As mentioned above, IWSO was informed by IWCS the day following the former student’s report. IWSO met with the victim and I believe she shared the documentation of the relationship with the investigator. Henson declined to be interviewed by the investigator. Ultimately, IWSO did not think they had enough evidence to charge Henson with a felony, but they did believe they had enough to charge him with a misdemeanor. However, the Isle of Wight Commonwealth Attorney’s office determined that because the accusation was made more than a year after the incident, the one year statute of limitations for misdemeanors had been exceeded. Therefore, charges could not be brought forward.
I can’t speak to the different thresholds between misdemeanors and felonies, but having reviewed literally 100s of sex abuse cases involving school employees in Virginia over the past 20 years, I can say that misdemeanor charges in these types of cases seem to be common. It is also important to note the evidence threshold for criminal charges is not the same as the threshold for VDOE to revoke a license. Interestingly, Virginia changed the law in July 2022 to extend the statute of limitations to five years in certain circumstances (which this case may have met). However, I don’t know for sure if it would have applied to the misdemeanor IWSO wanted to charge and I don’t know if it could be applied retroactively. That said, if the misdemeanor is eligible for the five year statute of limitations extension and it can be applied retroactively, then Henson could still be charged since the incident occurred four years ago, but the clock is ticking.
Other Issues
One of the dangers of this situation is that it is plausible Andrew Henson moved on to teach somewhere else in the 14 months it took to revoke his license. While it may have been difficult (but not impossible) for him to get hired at another Virginia public school, working at a private school or another state’s public school system is very possible. If you search for Andrew Henson on the internet, the only thing you will find related to teaching is his Teacher of the Year award and a couple of links to some of his former education sites. The VDOE information I used to write this article was sourced from information obtained through FOIA. If you look at the VDOE licensing website, you can find a posted database that shows his license was revoked, but search engines will not point you there.
We know it is possible for school divisions to unknowingly hire teachers in situations like this because IWCS did it in 2018. Mr. Sebastian Sebastian (yes, that is his real name) was credibly accused of child pornography while teaching in Georgia. After resigning from teaching in Georgia, he moved to Virginia and was hired by IWCS. Eventually, Georgia revoked his license and IWCS discovered the revocation four months after hiring him. When confronted by IWCS about his Georgia license and failure to disclose the issue on his application, Sebastian resigned and VDOE ultimately denied his application for a Virginia teaching license.
This could become a more significant issue as school systems become more desperate for teachers. I will address this issue and Mr. Sebastian in a future post.