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Jeffrey Clayton reportedly began kissing the student during a one-on-one voice lesson while preparing for a performance.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For the first time, we are hearing from a former Douglas Anderson School of the Arts teacher who says she worked closely with Jeffrey Clayton, the music teacher arrested Wednesday for lewd and lascivious behavior involving a student.
Rebecca Loar says she reported Clayton to the district years ago, but she says each time, he kept his job.
Loar says she worked at Douglas Anderson from 2007 until 2012 in the vocal department with Clayton. She says his arrest didn’t surprise her.
“I’m not surprised, so some of this behavior had come to light when I was working at Douglas Anderson and some of the students had come to me with their own stories of which those weren’t my stories to share,” said Loar.
She says during her time as a music teacher at Douglas Anderson, students would come to her with stories about Jeffrey Clayton.
Clayton was arrested Wednesday on a lewd and lascivious behavior charge involving a student.
Arrest records say he rubbed the student’s thighs during one on one voice lessons, exchanged around 1700 text messages and kissed the student.
Loar says she witnessed what she described as inappropriate behavior by Clayton when she worked with him.
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She says she reported it to the district numerous times.
“For all of these years, the first time I reported something was probably twelve years ago and nothing came of it, nothing came of it… again and again and again and again and that’s the bigger story,” said Loar.
She said, “this hasn’t been a sleeping giant, this is something the district has been aware of but actions have not been taken appropriately.”
Loar is no longer a teacher with DCPS, and she says she quit.
“I left due to the difficult work conditions while working at Douglas Anderson, specifically working with Mr. Clayton,” said Loar.
First Coast News reached out to DCPS for comment about these allegations Loar has made, but we reached out after hours because we interviewed her late Thursday evening.
We are waiting for the district to respond to these claims, and we will have updates when they do.
