School official suspended after classroom disruption

Darrell Wetherington (Credit: Polk School District)

Darrell Wetherington (Credit: Polk School District)

A Georgia school official was suspended with pay because he violated a clause in the district’s handbook prohibiting disruptions in a classroom setting, the attorney for the board of education said.

The Polk County school system will hold a public hearing in March to resolve the employment status of superintendent Darrell Wetherington, who has only been on the job since Jan. 1, officials said.

According to police, he made an unannounced visit Friday to his estranged wife’s classroom at Westside Elementary School.

That visit “caused a disruption," school board attorney Mike McRae told the Rome News-Tribune.

A school resource officer and a Cedartown police officer were called to the school, the newspaper reported.

Police said Wetherington entered the school on the pretense of delivering a Diet Coke to his estranged wife and to have a conversation with her.

At that time, there was no prohibition against the superintendent coming to the school, Cedartown police Chief Jamie Newsome said.

"The school resource officers had to make a choice about whether he was at the school in his official capacity or at Westside causing some kind of disturbance," Newsome said.

Jennifer Wetherington, who filed for divorce from Wetherington on Feb. 6, said she was “completely surprised” when he appeared at her classroom, officials said.

Read more of the story here.

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