Richard Berkley ? a former Dexter teacher and coach under investigation by the school district ? submitted his resignation to the school board last week and is no longer an employee of the school district, superintendent Ken Tarrant said Monday.
A probe into allegations of improper behavior by Berkley will continue.
“We’re consulting our legal counsel and moving ahead appropriately to get all the facts,” Tarrant, who splits his time between Dexter and Cedar Vale schools, said. “The process should be completed in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully we’ll have answers for everyone.”
Berkley was suspended with pay earlier this month when the investigation began. On April 21, he submitted his resignation at a special meeting of the school board for USD 471. Tarrant described Berkley’s departure as an “amicable resignation.”
He will be paid for the remainder of his contract, which is set to expire in about 30 days. When contacted by phone at his home near Dexter late Monday, Berkley declined to comment on his resignation or the investigation.
Tarrant said the school district is “walking a fine line” in regard to what information can be released because the matter is a personnel issue.
District officials have decided to move ahead with an inquiry and pass their findings on to appropriate agencies for review. Decisions about any criminal charges would be made by other entities, Tarrant said.
Cowley County Undersheriff Don Read told NewsCow that the sheriff’s department had been contacted by the Dexter school board in regard to the situation. School officials told sheriff’s investigators that a particular teacher was accused of “improper or unprofessional” behavior but, at the moment, “nothing criminal,” Read said.
Read said he expected the sheriff’s office to be contacted again if the teacher ? who he did not identify by name ? was suspected of a crime.
“I’m aware of it, the sheriff’s aware of it,” he said. “For right now they’re handling it internally.”
Tarrant would not comment about reports that a student had accused Berkley of inappropriate behavior but did say that input from students was part of the information being gathered.
Limited information was being made available in an effort to protect the rights of everyone involved in the probe, he said.
