A Fairview Elementary School teacher was arrested in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday and charged with a litany of sexual and other crimes including child rape.
The government school teacher, Jonathan Ullrich, was reportedly charged with incest, eight counts of rape, nine counts of aggravated sexual battery, specifically aggravated sexual exploitation of a child, and eight counts of rape of a child, and is being held at the Maury County Jail on a $200,000 bond. District Attorney General Brent Cooper reported two underage victims.
According to the Williamson Herald, after Ullrich’s arrest, he was placed on unpaid leave. School Principal Dr. Tracy Bullard will give families further instructions for the rest of the semester, which is done at the end of the week, the district told parents and staff in a letter about Ullrich’s arrest.
“The charges filed against Mr. Ullrich in Maury County are horrific. The district has no indication that any of the charges out of Maury County are related to his work in WCS,” Williamson County Schools said. “However, families who may have information to share with local law enforcement are encouraged to contact the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office.
Despite a record of sexual harassment allegations going back to 2014, however, Ullrich was dubbed his school’s Teach of the Year in 2020 at Williamson County School’s yearly employee recognition celebration.
Ullrich also has a long history of working directly with children. He reportedly opened and was the principal of Longview Elementary School in 2007, where he was later suspended and moved for allegedly violating the school’s anti-harassment policies but was allowed back into the classroom the next fall. Prior to that job, Ullrich reportedly worked as the assistant principal at Heritage Middle and Bethesda Elementary schools and taught at Chapman’s Retreat Elementary School.
This isn’t Williamson County’s first school-related dustup. In August, the county was embroiled in a mask controversy as the school board was set to vote on a mask mandate for elementary school students despite keeping them optional for middle and high school students.
Outkick founder Clay Travis, who has two kids in the county’s schools, blasted the “absurdity” in a fiery school board meeting, where he said, “I feel bad for all these people walking around in masks engaging in cosmetic theater thinking that they are making a difference against COVID – they aren’t.”
Here’s my full statement against masks @WCSedu tonight. So impressed by all the parents who came out tonight to speak on the absurdity of masks in schools. Very impressive group. Speak out at your own school boards: pic.twitter.com/t5go0YJCxN
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 11, 2021
“Here’s the truth, our kids — under 25 years old — one in a million chance that they are going to die of COVID. They are more likely to be struck by lightning. … They are more likely to die of the seasonal flu,” Travis said at the meeting. “Have any of you ever mandated masks for the seasonal flu? Well, shame on you because every kid in Williamson County Schools has been under more danger from the seasonal flu every year than they are for COVID.”
The anti mask at schools revolution is underway in Tennessee. These are the people who couldn’t get in the meeting tonight. They’ve never seen a crowd this big before for a school board meeting. pic.twitter.com/GXTDmPks6A
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 11, 2021
The same month, news broke that Tennessee’s former top vaccine official, Michelle Fiscus, who had been fired the month prior after sharing a memo on a state law permitting kids to get vaccinated without parental consent, was caught by the government after she ordered a dog muzzle off Amazon, shipped it to her office, and claimed an anonymous person sent as a threat.
Then in October, following the departure of Michelle’s husband Brad Fiscus from the Williamson County School Board after he had advocated for anti-science mask mandates for schoolchildren, his district’s commissioners nominated Josh Brown to take his seat despite glaring conflicts of interest. Brown was the national vice president of state government relations for Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company that created one of the COVID-19 shots.
