JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Longtime Douglas Anderson music teacher Jeffrey Clayton — accused of sexually harassing his students — pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges involving a student.
Clayton, the vocal director at the school for more than two decades, is charged with two counts of offenses against students by authority figures, indecent lewd or lascivious touching of certain minors and unlawful use of a two-way communication device.
Clayton was not in court Tuesday because his attorney, John Rockwell, filed a waiver for his appearance.
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The next pretrial will be May 10 and the trial is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 13.
Clayton, who retired following his arrest, is one of multiple Douglas Anderson employees who have been accused of misconduct. He is the only one who’s been arrested.
His arrest report indicates that the inappropriate activity he’s accused of happened at the school. Two other teachers have also been removed from the classroom as investigations into them are underway.
Police and the state attorney’s office plan to begin interviewing dozens of current and former students on Tuesday.
A message sent to parents of DA said, “The State Attorney’s Office, in concert with School Police and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, have identified approximately 140 students with whom they would like to conduct a brief interview. These students have been identified based on class rosters and participation in certain programs in recent years.”
All of the interviews will be voluntary, and parents have been encouraged to talk with their children prior to the interviews to decide if they want to participate in the investigation or not.
Local attorney Randy Reep, who is not affiliated with the case, believes talking to more students will be critical for the investigation.
“These particular students are probably identified as having had an opportunity to be victims of this teacher. So they are probably looking for very quick answers to ‘Are they correct that they were subject to that’ and if so, I suspect there will be a few where the interviews are longer,” Reep said.
According to a statement released by Duval County Public Schools, some students could be asked for follow-up interviews.
Reep said because this is such a sensitive subject for children to talk about it’s important for these students to feel safe talking to others if they were abused or mistreated.
“We want to be very very protective of youthful victims. It is worth noting that as you saw this first case develop it has the appearance that this was going on for a while and for whatever reason the child victim hadn’t disclosed this, so it’s very important to set an environment where a student, a child is willing to convey the information that the government is trying to find,” Reep said.
News4JAX has been told DCPS will release Clayton’s personnel file soon.