Emma Kennedy

ekennedy@pnj.com

The substitute teacher who was arrested on child molestation charges Thursday had been blocked from two Escambia County School District sites in the years prior for inappropriate behavior.

Richard Mack, 66, was arrested Thursday on charges of lewd and lascivious behavior-child molestation for incidents that allegedly occurred at Gulf Breeze Elementary School in October last year.

Mack was hired as a substitute teacher for Santa Rosa County School District through a third-party contracting company called PESG that the district has been using for approximately two years.

Prior to his work with SRCSD, Mack was blocked from teaching at two Escambia County schools and a teacher recommended he be removed from the entire district.

J.H. Workman Middle School principal Traci Ursey filed a complaint with the Pensacola Police Department in August of 2013 stating that Mack was relieved of his duties and asked to leave campus due to his inappropriate classroom behavior.

The police report, in which no charges were filed but it’s listed as ‘suspicious circumstances’, states that Mack made three female students feel uncomfortable by rubbing their backs and making comments on their appearance.

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“He came on very strong in the way that he touched me on my back and started rubbing my back,” one student’s written statement said.

“I really don’t have a good feeling about him. He made me feel uncomfortable,” a second report about the same incident said.

Mack was not allowed to teach in the district while the case was investigated by the Department of Children and Families, according to records, but that investigation was dropped after approximately six weeks.

Mack remained employed with Escambia County Schools once the investigation was complete and deemed unfounded, but he was blocked from teaching at Workman.

He was then the subject of another complaint in 2014 when a teacher said she came back from a day off to find Mack had made inappropriate comments including telling children he hated them and leaving them unattended.

The Ferry Pass Middle School teacher said in an email to the human resources department that she believed Mack should be blocked from the entire district.

She said the majority of her eighth grade class had complained about Mack’s behavior, including reporting comments saying “they could get hit by a bus tomorrow and die and he wouldn’t care.”

According to that same email, he said he was only substitute teaching because he needed the money, and told the children that if a shooter came in the room he would “hold the door open for them and let them come in.”

“Honestly, it’s by far the worst feedback I’ve ever gotten from my students… I feel he should be blocked from our school, and quite frankly, the whole district,” the teacher’s email, dated Nov. 5, 2014, states.

Despite being prohibited from teaching at two area schools, Mack was still in Escambia’s substitute roster system AESOP for almost a year. Escambia County Schools Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said when the 2013 went unfounded he had no reason to discontinue Mack’s employment, and he put the 2014 report down to an inability to manage the classroom.

“If you’re charged with an allegation and it’s unfounded, I don’t have a reason to remove you from every school,” Thomas said.

Thomas then went on to say that even if the allegation is unfounded, substitutes are generally blocked from the school involved because it’s ‘uncomfortable for the students involved’.

Thomas said Mack had allowed his teaching credentials to expire and officially notified the district of his removal from the substitute list on Sept. 30, 2015.

Mack was officially removed from the list at that time. Thomas did not know the last day Mack was physically in an Escambia County classroom.

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Mack went on to teach at Santa Rosa County District schools and even won the district’s Substitute Teacher of the Year award in 2016.

As the school district uses the PESG contracting system, Mack was an employee of that company as opposed to Santa Rosa Schools.

PESG released a statement Friday morning acknowledging Mack’s arrest, saying the company will cooperate with the school and law enforcement, but it will not speculate or comment further.

The release says PESG had followed all background check procedures in Mack’s employment. PESG did not respond to repeat inquires from the Pensacola News Journal as to what their background check procedures included.

Mack's personnel file from Escambia County School District detailed both incidents and the reasons he was blocked from teaching at two of their schools.

PESG was notified of ‘a concern’ involving Mack’s assignment in Santa Rosa county on Oct. 31 and that was his last date of assignment with PESG.

Mack remains housed at the Santa Rosa County Jail in lieu of a $1,000,000 bond.