© Ashley Remkus | aremkus@al.com/al.com/TNS Catherine Coffey, a Madison County teacher and coach, was arrested on charges of sex with a student, the sheriff's office said.

A Madison County teacher and assistant coach was arrested on charges of having sex with a student, the authorities announced today.

Catherine Lynn Coffey, 22, was booked into the Madison County jail on felony charges of being a school employee engaging in a sex act with a student and engaging in sexual contact with a student younger than 19, according to the sheriff’s office. She was being released on $31,000 bail on Friday afternoon, a sheriff’s office spokesman said.

Efforts to reach Coffey for comment weren’t immediately successful. A person who answered a phone call from AL.com said Coffey was unavailable and declined to comment. It’s unclear whether she has an attorney.

Coffey is accused of having sex with a teen student from Madison County High School, said Brent Patterson, a spokesman for Madison County Sheriff Kevin Turner’s office. The sexual contact happened between August and December of 2019, Patterson said.

Coffey is an assistant softball coach at the high school and a teacher at Madison County Elementary, according to the sheriff’s office and her bio on the school system’s website. She has been put on administrative leave, said Tim Hall, a spokesman for Madison County Schools.

Coffey received an Alabama teaching certificate in July of 2019, according to online records from the state’s Department of Education.

Investigators learned about allegations of sexual misconduct on Monday and interviewed the student, Patterson said. Further details weren’t released to protect the student’s identity.

In a statement, Hall said the school system is cooperating with the investigation and directed all questions about the case to the sheriff’s office.

“Once our agency received these criminal allegations, a case report was generated, and an investigation was conducted immediately," Sheriff Turner said in a statement.

Further details weren’t immediately available.

If convicted, Coffey faces up to 30 years in prison and lifetime on the sex offender registry.

This story was last updated at 5:57 p.m. to add comments from a school system spokesman.

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