With today’s reporting from Franco Ordoñez and Fred Clasen-Kelly, CMS and the Matthews Police Department enter a danger zone. In fact, the suspension of Butler High School Principal Theresa Hopkins may drive Superintendent Peter Gorman from his post.

Now that the paper has reported that Christian LeMay was engaged in sexual activity with another student on CMS grounds, the manner in which the incident was handled by CMS and Matthews police is open to scrutiny. To make sense of that reaction and understand why Gorman is at risk we have to go back to 2006 and CMS’ sudden interest in controlling the information flow on disciplinary issues at system schools.

The late, great Charlotte edition of the Rhino Times was all over the changes Gorman instituted both to clamp down on negative info reaching the public about incidents in CMS settings and to clean up haphazard lines of responsibility over criminal behavior in schools. Recall that CMS could not keep law enforcement informed — and vice versa — of incidents involving pedophiles and sexual relationships between teachers and students.

This resulted in a greatly hyped memorandum of understanding unveiled in March 2007 between CMS and local LEAs, including Matthews police. This set out how CMS staffers were to respond to a host of incidents, including sexual activity on school grounds.

“We believe the best way to keep our schools safe is to have teachers and education professionals handle academic matters, and to have law enforcement handled by those who are trained to do it,” Gorman said at the time.

The MOU copied state law and made it CMS policy to require the immediate reporting of any suspected crime. In fact, the Times noted that under the MOU, if a principal fails to report a crime to the police, the principal could be charged with a Class 3 misdemeanor. Indeed going back to the days of current area super Joel Ritchie as principal, Butler was well known for calling the Matthews po-po in at the drop of a hat, generating many more incident reports than schools within CMPD’s jurisdiction.

Yet Ordoñez and Clasen-Kelly report, citing unnamed sources, that Hopkins was suspended for going first to Matthews police about the LeMay incident and allowing the police to notify CMS brass. The suspension then appears to directly contradict the MOU and CMS policy.

Either that or these sources have no idea what they are talking about, and Hopkins was primarily suspended for other reasons. Note that CMS, by design, can essentially suspend any staffer at anytime given the Kafkaesque “rules” they are expected to follow. Once the EdShed launches an investigation, like Torquemada or the Stasi, you can bet they’ll come back with something, no matter how trivial.

So then, are we certain that the LeMay affair was the precipitating event? If the UPoR sourcing is correct, it would be very bizarre for CMS to come down on a principal for using their best judgment on how to handle a very difficult situation.

Gorman himself admitted there could be gray areas in such matters back in 2007:

Besides the reference in the General Statutes, just exactly what the cut-off point between what constitutes a crime and the age-old student behavior traditionally known as “cutting up” still remains murky. Gorman is all for letting the onus of that decision fall on the principals.

“There’s a lot of subjectivity there,” he said.

Yet Hopkins supposedly uses her judgment built on 30-years of experience to call the law after either happening upon or being told of sexual activity of a sort that routinely results in arrests in Freedom Park or any other local public space — and she is kicked out the door? Is that really the official CMS party line?

This brings us to the Matthews police. Are we to understand from the department’s handling of this matter that Matthews officers have never arrested Butler students for sexual activity on campus, indecent exposure, or disorderly conduct? And telling us that at least one of the participants in the incident was a minor as a way to block release of the incident report only suggests the obvious question — were both participants minors, then?

Without answers to these questions a cynic might say that Matthews police let a star QB for the town’s high school get away with something that would have brought charges against your average teen. In fact, I’d wager there are a slew of defense attorneys who might have serious questions about the charges leveled at their clients by Matthews finest in light of what we now know about the discretion shown in this matter.

And although I am under no illusion that such a majority currently exists, the CMS board would seem to be perfectly within its rights to ask Pete Gorman to explain the disconnects between received policy and recent events at Butler, including a full disclosure of all supposed violations of CMS policy by all parties, or kindly submit his resignation.

Bonus Sourcing: Multiple sources claim that Principal Hopkins herself walked in on the supposed sexual activity.