The 18-year-old son of former Clayton County schools superintendent Edmond Heatley is out on bond after being arrested last week for allegedly bringing a knife to school.
Anthony Heatley, a senior at Jonesboro High School, was charged with felony possession of a weapon on campus. He faces up to five years in prison, if convicted. In addition, he faces several possible punitive actions from the school district.
Heatley was arrested at school on April 16 for carrying a knife with a 3-inch blade. Judge Tammi Long Hayward set a $10,000 bond and appointed a public defender. Hayward told Heatley he is not to return to Jonesboro High School. State law says it’s a felony to have a weapon, including a knife with a blade more than two inches, on school grounds.
Efforts to reach the Heatleys were unsuccessful.
“I’m not able to talk about specific cases,” school district spokesman David Waller said Monday. “But in cases like that, the principal would be able to give the student up to 10 days out-of-school suspension, or they could request a tribunal hearing and the tribunal hearing could result in punishment ranging from the days that have already been served out-of-school to assignment to the alternative school to expulsion.”
Waller noted that the younger Heatley is “being treated like anyone else would” in a similar circumstance. It isn’t the first time the younger Heatley has been in the news. The superintedent drew considerable criticism from a teachers’ union last June because his wife and children were on the county payroll. At the time, Heatley’s wife was a community/parent liaison at Lovejoy High School and Anthony Heatley and his sister allegedly worked summer jobs for the school system.
During his tenure with Clayton schools, Superintendent Heatley helped guide the county’s schools through restoration of its accreditation. He announced in August that he was leaving to take a job with a school district in California. That job never materialized.
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