Special needs teacher charged in affair with student

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A 29-year-old contract teacher working at Northgate High School was charged May 27 with child molestation involving a 15-year-old former student. Dorothy Elizabeth Dixon was arrested after her husband found sexting messages on his wife’s phone, confronted her and reported her explanation to authorities.

Maj. James Yarbrough of the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office said investigators were alerted to what is said to have been a sexual relationship between Dixon and one of her former students, a 15-year-old male special needs student, after her husband found sexting messages on her phone.

Yarbrough said Dixon’s husband saw messages on his wife’s phone and originally thought those communications were with a adult male. But what Dixon told him when he confronted her, said Yarbrough, was that she had been having relations with a 15-year-old boy who had been a former student that she had taught in a special needs class at Northgate.

Dixon is employed by the Burwell Psychoeducational Center in Newnan and had been teaching special needs children at Northgate High School as part of a contract teaching agreement with the Coweta County School System, Yarbrough said.

Dixon’s husband called law enforcement and reported what he had been told, said Yarbrough.

Yarbrough said investigators determined that Dixon had been involved in the relationship with the 15-year-old for several months and had met him in different locations.

Coweta County School System spokesperson Dean Jackson said that even though Dixon is not a school system employee the matter is nonetheless a personnel issue and the school system cannot make any comment on the issue at this time.

Dixon is being held without bond in the Coweta County Jail.