Barrett Davis the Latest in a Line of Evans Improprieties
Austin’s Undeniable Truth for Public Officials # 1: Bad decisions, bad policy, and bad people will create problems for those you serve and diminish the public’s faith in both you and your agency. Address such events and personalities quickly, aggressively, and transparently. Do so in the loudest voice possible.
As a career educator, my wonderful wife has been required to attend more Columbia County Board of Education seminars and start of the school year pep rallies than she cares to remember. I am told these get-togethers are often very generic and depending on who you ask, of dubious value. Let me tell you how to fix that for the August 2025 version of this event.
Start the meeting by projecting the 2024 yearbook photo of now-former Evans High School Football Coach Barrett Davis.
Follow up with pictures of the headlines, social media posts, and legal correspondence generated by his hideous decision to engage in a romantic relationship with a recent Evans graduate. The girl that he ostensibly (and innocently, according to him) knew only as a “student and friend” since she was about 15 years old. He would have been 33 years old at that time.
Family sources say a private investigator hired by Davis’s likely-soon-to-be ex-wife obtained evidence of an affair involving him and the girl in question, reportedly prompting the wife to escalate divorce proceedings and go public with the information.
We have been told by those close to the 19-year-old graduate that she readily admits to being ‘in love” with Davis and wants to marry him. Davis also apparently admits to the relationship, while insisting to Board of Education officials and others that he has followed the letter of the law, making sure the physical relationship with this girl didn’t commence until it was legal to do so.
Georgia state law prohibits physical intimacy between school system employees and students, regardless of age, until August 31st of the student’s graduation year.
Note: We will not report the name of the female because Davis is still under investigation for possibly initiating the affair before it was legal to do so. Consent or not and no matter her age, if Davis were found guilty that would make the female student the victim of a sexual felony.
It apparently doesn’t occur to Davis that this affair can be both legal and profoundly stupid at the same time. Ironically, this specific law was enacted to close a loophole exposed by another profoundly stupid Columbia County educator 19 years ago.
That involved the affair of a 28-year-old Harlem High School softball coach and a 16- year- old student, back in 2006. Melissa Chase spent several years in prison for sex acts with one of her players, until her legal team convinced the Georgia Supreme Court that the relationship was legal because the 16-year-old was above the age of consent.
State legislators wisely and immediately drafted the current law.
Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that this same school reportedly saw another inappropriate affair involving one of Davis’s assistant coaches and a female student just last year.
Montel Watters has been charged and is awaiting formal indictment in the case, but according to investigators, there is little doubt regarding the strength of the case against him.
In the past 10 years we have seen two male Evans High School teachers convicted on charges of improper sexual relationships with female students – drama teacher Matthew Curley in 2015 and band instructor Anthony Alberti in 2022. Curley served two years of a seven-year sentence and Alberti was sentenced to five years and still calls Dodge State Prison home.
A bit of a sidebar on Curley. When then Evans principal Michael Johnson confronted him with the accusations, Curley reportedly smirked and dismissed the issue as an inconvenience. He seemed to think he was only going to be fired, with no legal consequence, because his victim was over the age of consent. I am told the sight of the insidious smile made while making this wildly inaccurate comment so enraged Johnson that he launched himself at the pervert and had to be physically restrained from pummeling the man right there. Every time I think about that, I want to hug Michael Johnson around the neck.
This current situation with Davis has not only brought these other legal cases back into the spotlight, but I can attest that fellow members of the media personalities have been peppered with sordid tales involving other teachers and staff at Evans High School – some going back quite a while.
Here’s to hoping Board of Education officials can sort it all out, and that they handle this ridiculous and indefensible – but apparently legal – behavior among those they employ with a stronger hand. Davis questionable behavior was reportedly called out by some and subsequently dismissed.
Stay tuned for more on that.
It seems more tales of impropriety at Evans High School are being told by current and former students, as well as former faculty and staff. One of the common themes in these reports of shenanigans seems to be that current Evans High School Principal Wade White is either complicit with knowledge of impropriety, but failing to act aggressively to correct it, or an over-the-hill moron out of touch with the behavior and atmosphere on the campus he leads.
Following the police blotter, the Evans Knights may soon need to be renamed, the Evans Predators.