Note: This report contains discussions of sexual abuse, self-harm, and suicide. If you or anyone you know is in crisis, call the mental health hotline at 98 .
On a Tuesday evening in February 2018, I got a phone call from a Sheriff’s Deputy. We talked briefly. They told me that a teacher named Michael Earl Kelly had been arrested, that the charges were serious, and that there was more to come. I asked how serious. The deputy said only, “it’s bad.”
Criminal investigation and civil litigation involving New Hanover County Schools district have dragged on for four years. That’s left the survivors of sexual abuse by former teacher Michael Earl Kelly in limbo, struggling "minute by minute," as one young man put it. For them, justice, healing, and closure are taking a very long time.
This coming Thursday, Superior Court Judge Phyllis Gorham will review the status of two civil lawsuits against New Hanover County Schools involving the child sexual abuse crimes of former district teachers Michael Earl Kelly and Peter Michael Frank.