CCSD: Gethers named “Employee of Year” amid porn investigation

CHARLESTON COUNTY, SC (WCSC) - Former Charleston County Schools employee Marvin Gethers was named the 2015 Classified Employee of the Year, CCSD confirmed.

The honor came the year after the district reported Gethers to North Charleston Police for possible child pornography on his school laptop.

"Marvin Gethers was CCSD's 2015 Classified Employee of the Year. As part of the recognition, he was provided with the use of a vehicle," said Erica Taylor, Chief Strategy and Communications Officer for CCSD after we asked the district to confirm the information we received.

The district employees who managed the original incident no longer work at CCSD, Taylor said.

Police records show Gethers complained to the IT department about "debug" errors on his laptop in January 2014.

According to affidavits, IT personnel ran routine virus scans and found inappropriate websites had been accessed.

CCSD turned over the computer to detectives 37 days after inappropriate material was first found on the device.

In the meantime, Gethers wrote a letter apologizing to the district for "poor judgment in inappropriate use of the school's property" and wrote that he only accessed adult material.

At some point for reasons still unclear, Gethers was allowed to return to work at Dunston Elementary in North Charleston.

He was promoted to the role of "Parent Advocate" in October 2014 before receiving the Classified Employee of the Year accolades in 2015.

After a 22-month wait on forensic analysis on the computer, NCPD charged Gethers with the child porn in 2016 and arrested him.

Shortly after, two victims came forward alleging Gethers touched them inappropriately at school.

The children were forensically interviewed, and Gethers was also charged with those crimes.

Gethers was not convicted. He died in 2017 while awaiting trial and, his attorneys said, he was prepared to defend the charges and clear his name.

After our initial story about this case aired, state legislators said they were considering action to uncover who made decisions in this case at CCSD four years ago.

The State Department of Education confirmed Gethers was not a certified educator so the state had no power to revoke any certification from him at the time of investigation.

However, SCDE noted, this situation was not reported by CCSD to the State Board of Education.

"Our agency and the State Board of Education do have the authority to independently investigate and take action against the licenses of certified educators for unprofessional conduct. If information shows that other certified educators acted unprofessionally in the handling of the the circumstance in question, the agency can and will investigate and take action against them," said Ryan Brown, Chief Communications Officer at SCDE.

Live 5 is continuing to investigate which leaders were aware of the Gethers situation in 2014.

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