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November 24, 2009

Teacher given probation, stripped of certification

Mark Millican

A teacher charged with battery on two students at Westside Middle School in April pleaded guilty in Whitfield County Superior Court on Tuesday and must surrender his teaching certificate as part of the sentence.

Mack Odell Gothard, 58, of 2020 Sheffield Place in Dalton, pleaded guilty to one count of battery and two counts of simple battery. Judge Robert Adams sentenced him to 12 months probation on each count for a total of 36 months probation, a $1,000 fine, and special conditions including surrendering his teaching certificate, not teaching for pay or in a volunteer role, staying away from children other than his own and taking an anger management class at his own expense.

Gothard was placed on administrative leave with pay after the incident. School system spokesman Eric Beavers said in August that Gothard was no longer employed by the school system.

Gothard’s attorney, Marcus Morris, said the incident was “regrettable” but added there were some “mitigating circumstances.”

“I think the sentence was fair,” he said. “Teachers are often admonished not to have physical contact with students, and he violated that. But I think the court considered that he had a liver transplant and a stroke, and was in a lot of pain. The public needs to know that these two juveniles called him a name with a sexual connotation to it, and anyone would have become mad. He was in a lot of pain and he’d had enough.”

Morris said the reason Gothard was not given community service was because of his physical condition.

“He has very brittle bones because of the medication he’s taking,” he said. “He actually turned over in bed and destroyed a lumbar vertebrae in his back. He is physically unable to work. I don’t think he meant any ill will toward the boys, and he gave a statement to (a middle school administrator) explaining what happened and that he had a knee-jerk reaction.

“The boys probably should have been punished, but they weren’t.”

Morris said Gothard did not want to talk to the media.







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