Did School Officials Break The Law?

School officials may have broken the law by not reporting a complaint against Causey Middle School's Teacher of the Year.

Sixth grade science teacher Charles Lewis was arrested Tuesday on charges that he sexually touched a 9 year old boy and offered the child alcohol. The incident allegedly happened in July 2009, but the child only told his parents about it last week when Lewis was arrested for driving drunk on his way to school.

After News Five reported Lewis' arrest, the school principal publicly denied receiving any prior complaints about Lewis, but since then multiple parents have come forward saying they reported inappropriate behavior by the teacher dating back to 2004.

One of the complaints, which Superintendent Dr. Roy Nichols first acknowledged Thursday, caught the attention of Mobile County's Child Advocacy Center.

In a letter to the school principal in September 2009, a mother says her son saw more of his teacher than he should have. Nichols told News Five the incident was investigated and school officials determined Lewis "inadvertently" exposed himself while changing out of a costume in a classroom closet, but Pat Guyton, Director of Mobile County's Child Advocacy Center says that's not good enough. A source close to that complaint tells us the mother believed the exposure was intentional. If that's the case, Guyton says the parent's complaint should have been reported to law enforcement.

"The school, by law, had a mandated legal responsibility to report it to law enforcement and or the department of human resources," said Guyton, who insists if the report was made to authorities, a case review team from the advocacy center would have seen it as well.

Nichols was not available for comment Friday, and a spokesperson for the school district would only say an internal investigaiton is underway.

News Five attempted to reach Lewis to respond to the allegations, but a family member, who said Lewis was staying at her house, said he had nothing to say.