Paige Adams, the Cold Springs High School basketball coach who abruptly resigned in late March, was indicted by a grand jury on Tuesday on charges related to sexual contact with a student.
Adams faces two felonies — a school employee engaging in a sex act or deviant sexual intercourse with a student, and a school employee having sexual contact with a student under the age of 19 — and 30 misdemeanor counts of distributing obscene materials to a student.
Adams previously coached at Holly Pond High School, where she also resigned years earlier.
School officials are under fire from local residents, wondering what they knew and when. Following her first resignation, after just one season in 2017, Superintendent Shane Barnette called Adams "a great role model for the young people of Cullman County."
Though the district has not released a formal announcement following her arrest, it acknowledged an investigation in March.
"This is the first formal complaint I have received regarding this employee. As soon as the concern was raised, an investigation was initiated. The employee chose to resign at that time," the March statement read. "In accordance with standard procedure, all CCBOE materials were returned, and she was escorted from school property. The matter has been referred to the appropriate authorities, and I promptly called a board meeting to approve her resignation. Our sole focus is protecting the students of Cullman County Schools. We are going to do what is right, as we always have."
According to the Cullman County Sheriff’s office, Adams’s attorney turned her in after the indictment was issued. Jail records indicate that she was booked in at 2:15 p.m. and released at 3:10 p.m. The court required that she use electronic monitoring.
Adams is considered innocent until proven guilty.
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