FALMOUTH — Mashpee schools Superintendent Brian Hyde was acquitted Wednesday of trespassing and breaking and entering into the home of a student in his district during a residency check, ending one portion of a monthslong dispute that has thrown the school district into turmoil.

Halfway into the second day of Hyde’s trial in Falmouth District Court, Judge Mary Orfanello ordered a directed verdict of not guilty on charges of misdemeanor trespass and breaking and entering to commit a misdemeanor.

“Evidence is clear that he was not forbidden (from the home) directly, or by means of a posted notice,” said Orfanello, referring to one of the requirements to find a defendant guilty of trespassing.

The case was being heard by a jury, but in a directed verdict a judge orders the finding, saying no reasonable jury could reach a decision to the contrary. Hyde’s attorney Drew Segadelli filed a motion for a directed finding of not guilty after the prosecution ended its case Wednesday afternoon.

Spectators in the courtroom erupted in applause after the ruling.

Hyde has been on paid administrative leave since Nov. 5. Although the judge’s ruling ends the criminal charges against him, his status with the school district is still unresolved.

The Mashpee School Committee was scheduled to discuss his future at a special meeting last week, but the meeting was postponed because a board member had a medical emergency. Committee Chairman Don Myers said the board was scheduled to meet Feb. 25 to discuss personnel issues and possibly vote on Hyde's status.

"I am glad that the court has finally determined the legal issues surrounding Superintendent Brian Hyde's actions during the home visit," Myers said in an email Wednesday. He said Feb. 25 was the first date "all the parties" were available to meet.

Hyde was accused of entering a Windsor Way, Mashpee, house without permission to do a residency check on Isabel King, who had been trying to re-enroll at Mashpee Middle-High School after spending several months in Florida.

Earlier Wednesday, a paramedical examiner for a life insurance company who was checking Isabel’s grandmother Sept. 29 testified that Hyde's demeanor was "forceful" when he entered the King home that morning.

Hyde and school resource officer William Cuozzo parked along the street and Hyde knocked at the front door, examiner Malee Pratt said. After the grandmother opened the door a crack and asked if she could help him, he took a step into the house, Pratt said.

When Isabel’s mother, Marilyn King, who was halfway down the stairs, saw Hyde, whom Pratt said she did not know, she called out, "Why is he here?" Pratt said.

King’s mother, Erlinda Valle, testified she did not hear her daughter call anything out when she went to the door.

An interpreter did not show up at court for the second day in a row, but Pratt testified that she was able to speak with Valle, who is Filipino, in English. It was decided to proceed with Valle as a witness without an interpreter.

Valle’s English was broken, and both Segadelli and Cape and Islands Assistant District Attorney Daniel Higgins slowed down their questioning for her. She displayed difficulty understanding some questions.

After she opened the door “only small” to ask Hyde who he was, he asked her if Isabel lived in the house, Valle said in broken English. She told him her granddaughter lived there.

“He hold the knob and open it wider so he could enter our house,” Valle testified.

On Tuesday, Marilyn King testified that Hyde asked her where her daughter slept and she pointed upstairs.

Pratt said Hyde went upstairs for no more than five minutes before returning to the living room.

She said she asked him if it was standard protocol for Mashpee school employees to go to such lengths to make sure a student lived in the town.

Segadelli asked Pratt if she knew the history of the Kings lying about their residency before Hyde came to the house. She said she did not.

He then asked how Pratt would have known that Hyde was making a home visit if she did not know the background of the enrollment issues at the time.

Pratt was unable to give a direct answer before additional questions were asked.

Higgins also called Cuozzo to testify Wednesday. The officer told jurors that before going to the Kings’ home, he had told Hyde, whom he has known for seven or eight years, that home visits weren’t a “police function.”

He told him “we could be there to keep the peace, but my job wouldn’t be to go in the residence,” he said.

On Sept. 29, he stayed in his car until he was asked to go inside by Marilyn King, who told him that Hyde didn’t believe her daughter lived there, he said. King then showed Cuozzo a bedroom upstairs and another on the first floor.

Cuozzo testified that he didn’t recall if he had ever before accompanied Hyde on a home visit.

After the verdict, Segadelli and Hyde’s other attorney, Mark Gildea, called for his return to work.

“This has been a terrible ordeal for a great family man. He’s the superintendent of Mashpee; we hope he can continue that way,” Segadelli said. “We hope we can get him back to work, this great family man. He’s done nothing, while attacked and assailed in the press, on the radio, and he essentially had to stand mute.”

One juror, Carolsue Donabar, of South Chatham, said that while she listened to all of the evidence presented to her, she wasn’t leaning toward a verdict at the time the prosecution rested its case.

“I do think that the school has a right to find out if the children are in residency,” Donobar said, when asked about Hyde’s home visit as a superintendent. “I don't know what the procedure is, how the schools do it. I do know that you do have to prove where you live to the school you go to.”

Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, had sent an email to superintendents Monday asking them to show up at the trial to support Hyde.

Monomoy Regional schools Superintendent Scott Carpenter attended Wednesday. Dennis-Yarmouth Regional schools Superintendent Carol Woodbury was among those who attended the opening day of proceedings Tuesday.

School committee member Scott McGee, a staunch supporter of Hyde, began tweeting stories and video about Hyde's acquittal after the ruling.

Myers replaced McGee as school committee chairman in a reorganization of the board Jan. 20. School committee members complained about McGee's refusal to release to the public the results of an independent investigation into the home visit and said residents expressed concern he was too close to the superintendent.

The Data Quest report was released to the public Jan. 21.

In response to the directed verdict, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said only, "This is a case, the facts of which should have been, and were, presented to and decided by the court."