A Georgia Fair Dismissal Act hearing for Patrick M. Hill, the Mattie Lively Elementary School assistant principal charged with simple battery in a case involving a 7-year-old student, has been postponed.
Bulloch County Schools Superintendent Charles Wilson had reviewed witness statements and surveillance camera video of the Nov. 14 incident and recommended that Hill’s employment contract be terminated and not renewed. As an educator contracted for a definite term of service, Hill is legally entitled to a hearing before the Bulloch County Board of Education, which would make the decision.
That hearing was originally slated for 10 a.m. Dec. 16. But Wilson’s administrative assistant, Mary Henley, notified the Statesboro Herald on Friday that the hearing was postponed and that she would send further information when it is rescheduled.
Also, after the story of Hill’s arrest appeared in Thursday’s edition, the newspaper requested and received school security camera video of the incident, now posted at www.statesboroherald.com.
The arrest warrant was sworn Nov. 28 by Statesboro Police Department Capt. Jared Akins and issued by Bulloch County Probate Court Judge Lorna DeLoach. In it, Akins alleged that Hill “did intentionally cause physical harm” to the 7-year-old boy “by throwing him down on a bench causing a small abrasion to the knuckle area of the right hand” in the incident two weeks earlier.
An arrest report, also on file with the Bulloch County State Court, shows that Hill was “taken into custody” Nov. 28 at the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office. He posted bond, set at $2,000, that same day but is no longer working at the school.
Hill’s arraignment, or formal reading of the misdemeanor charge, is slated for Jan. 18 before State Court Judge Joseph Cushner.
An educator in the local schools for 29 years, Hill had been assigned as an assistant principal at Mattie Lively just this year after three years as Statesboro High School’s athletic director and as one of its assistant principals. Before that he served as principal of Portal Middle High School and before that of Mill Creek Elementary School.