Three students have been expelled and two coaches have been placed on paid leave as an investigation continues into hazing allegations involving Bauxite's high school baseball team.
Rebecca Worsham, an attorney for the Bauxite School District, said the School Board voted during a special meeting Wednesday night to expel the students for the remainder of the 2017-18 school year.
Worsham said Thursday the students are accused of violating the district's student handbook, and she confirmed that letters sent to the students' families listed the reason for expulsion as sexual harassment and hazing.
Coach Michael Mattox and assistant coach Steven Tew were placed on paid administrative leave from all duties Tuesday, Worsham said. Once the investigation is complete, the district's administration will decide whether any action will be taken concerning their contracts, she added.
Mattox is a physical education teacher at Pine Haven Elementary, and Tew is a business teacher at Bauxite Middle School, according to Leann Pinkerton, a spokesman for the school district.
Arkansas State Police are assisting with the investigation. Spokesman Bill Sadler said a criminal case file based on sexual assault allegations involving the students was opened April 4.
The three students expelled were suspended for 10 days initially, effective March 29, pending the outcome of Wednesday night's hearing. If they return for the 2018-19 school year, the students will not be able to participate in any extracurricular activities, the letters state.
The allegations stem from a March 2 incident on a bus ride home from a game in Mena, according to the players' attorney, John Wesley Hall.
Hall said the incident was nothing more than the players' usual "roughhousing" and nothing close to a sexual assault, as some have said. Three of the students under investigation told KATV, Channel 7, that coaches had sometimes urged players to hit one another until someone bled or passed out.
Hall said his clients want video footage from the bus to be released, but the school district has denied his request. He told KATV he plans to appeal the district's decision.
Whether the students finish out the school year in an alternative learning environment would be up to their parents, Pinkerton said.
Pinkerton said Thursday that the district did not have any more expulsion hearings pending but declined to specify whether any disciplinary actions against anyone else were being considered.
She declined to answer many of the newspaper's questions, citing student privacy laws.
Pinkerton did not specify who reported the incident, but she said the district reported it to state police and the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
Pinkerton confirmed that a security camera on the bus captured the incident but said the video was not used in the expulsion process because it's part of Arkansas State Police's criminal investigation.
State Desk on 04/14/2018