COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A Cobb County high school teacher has been arrested and accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a female student, records show.
Harrison High School Principal Ashlynn Campbell sent a letter to families Wednesday about "a terrible situation our administration recently became aware of," and said that a staff member was accused of inappropriate behavior.
Criminal warrants from the Magistrate Court of Cobb County cite that Eric Taylor Butler engaged in an improper relationship with a 16-year-old student. Butler is listed on the Harrison High School website as a teacher.
Their interactions spanned over five months, warrants show, and started on June 1. It recently ended on Monday, Oct. 2. Warrants for his arrest were signed Tuesday and Butler was taken into custody Wednesday, records show.
Butler "did engage in substantial steps toward the commission of sexual assault," with a student where he teaches, a warrant alleges, and pursued her via text and phone calls. When Butler was approached by a co-worker to cut relations with the girl, he got a new phone specifically to text the teen and to avoid being detected, according to a warrant. He told the girl to refer to him as "daddy" or "d1" and he would call her "mommy" or "m1" in correspondence.
The teacher would also have one-on-one meetings at the school with the girl before school and during lunch, the two even met up at a Starbucks on two occasions last week, the warrant states.
"Said accused has engaged in sexually explicit conversations with said juvenile," the warrant reads.
Jail records show Butler is accused of sexual assault by a teacher, a felony, and the solicitation of sodomy, a misdemeanor. He was booked into the Cobb County jail.
In the letter to families, Campbell called the accusations troubling and said the school was supporting "the alleged victim in every possible way" while cooperating with authorities throughout the investigation.
Campbell urged students, staff and parents to visit http://www.cobbshield.com to see what the district is doing to keep schools safe. People can also report safety concerns via its dedicated tip line or directly to Harrison High's leadership team.
The principal said as the investigation is active, she could not provide more details.