OPS Board of Education votes to suspend superintendent Matthew Constant without pay

OWENSBORO, Ky. (WFIE) - Owensboro Public Schools has suspended superintendent Matthew Constant without pay and started proceedings to terminate his contract.

[Previous Story: OPS Superintendent suspended, KSP investigation underway]

Officials say that Constant was involved in a relationship with an adult aged student enrolled in another school district. They say they felt the need to terminate because they had enough evidence to take action.

Kentucky Police are investigating whether or not this is a criminal situation. The school says it’s unethical and inappropriate, but so far, the only hard evidence police have is about a dating relationship with a student who was described as an adult.

Kentucky State Trooper Cory King says Dr. Matthew Constant was first brought under criminal investigation around a month ago.

“Our agency received a third-party call of a possible relationship, a dating relationship if you will between Dr. Constant and with the information, we had a possible 18-year-old student from another district or younger,” said King.

Owensboro Public Schools Board president Jeremy Luckett says while the relationship hasn’t yet been found to be criminal, the relationship was improper for his position, and Constant never told the board that police were investigating.

“It’s conduct that was unbecoming for our superintendent but also dereliction of duty in not keeping the board apprised of what was going on,” said Luckett.

While Constant has been suspended without pay and the process of firing him has begun, criminal investigations are still underway.

“What would make this criminal is the age of the student in question,” said King.

King says they don’t know how long this relationship has been going on.

The student may be 18 now, but they don’t have evidence of how old they were when Constant began the relationship.

“We are still interviewing and asking the questions that we need to make sure that this does not go into a criminal manner,” said King. “If it does at that point, we’ll take action.”

King says they’re waiting on data from cell phones and computers to get the full picture of what happened between Constant and this student. He says that could take a few more weeks to a month.

The school board has considered the firm fact from police that Constant was involved in a dating relationship with a student at another school district, and they’re choosing to terminate him.

School officials say they can now move forward in finding another superintendent.

Constant had been on suspension since May.

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