Reported by Laura Sinacori - bio|email
Posted by Debra Worley - email
NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WECT) - New Hanover County school board released some information from the personnel file of a former teacher.
According to a NC statute, a school board is allowed to release information from a personnel file to maintain integrity of the board.
27-year-old Jessica Wishnask was arrested in Martin County Thursday morning where she was charged with statutory rape and dissemination of harmful material.
Last month, she resigned from Pactolus Elementary School in Pitt County after being arrested in Wilmington and charged with indecent liberties with a 15-year-old boy.
Before teaching in Pitt County, Wishnask was suspended from Williston Middle School twice toward the end of 2008.
Friday, New Hanover County school board members met behind closed doors for more than three hours before deciding to release part of Wishnask's personnel file.
The file explained that the teacher was suspended while two internal investigations were taking place during the time she taught at Williston Middle School in the fall of 2008.
School board members say Wishnask was not accused of a crime during those investigations, but it was observed that she had been in a locked classroom with a male student. She was later seen talking to that student again after she had been instructed not to.
According to school board members, neither investigation revealed any evidence of illegal contact.
School board members say the 15-year-old teen Wishnask is accused of raping is the same minor who was involved in the previous investigations.
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Source: New Hanover County Sheriff's Office
Source: Wilmington Police Department
Source: Wilmington Police Department
