Overturned DCS Case Against Dalton Did Not Include Video of Incident in Trial |

The Department of Children's Services' 2019 case against the former Blount County Schools physical education teacher who pleaded guilty last month to inappropriately touching children contained just three pieces of evidence, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Times. DCS investigators apparently never showed video of the 2019 incident in which Joseph Michael Dalton allegedly touched one of his students.

Dalton, now 50, pleaded guilty last month to multiple counts of offensive touching. Accusations of assault are often made when unwanted physical contact is non-violent but cannot be proven to be sexual. These allegations follow a series of incidents in 2023 in which law enforcement said he inappropriately touched students at several schools.

But this isn't the first time local and state authorities have investigated Dalton. Previous Daily Times reports detailed how the former teacher was suspended multiple times during his time at BCS. One such case, which initially found the allegations against him credible, was later overturned in a DCS trial.

Story

On October 30, 2019, the father of a 6-year-old girl at Eagleton Elementary School met with Principal Buffy Wyrosdick. His child, he said, reported that Dalton had touched her inappropriately during class the day before. According to police reports and internal BCS investigative documents obtained from Dalton's employee file, the student told her parents that Dalton touched her buttocks while the class sat in a circle. She also said Dalton told her he had a farm with horses and that he wanted to take her there.

Two days later, Eagleton's school resource office reported that Eagleton's assistant principal, Nathan Strayne, had contacted them about the incident. The Blount County Sheriff's Office and the Tennessee Department of Children's Services launched separate investigations that day.

Seven days later, on November 8, 2019, then-BCS Principal Rob Britt suspended Dalton without pay, a day after he ordered Wyrosdick not to allow the physical education teacher back on school grounds pending the outcome of the BCSO investigation. According to a report sent to Britt by then-assistant principal David Murrell, Strayne had reviewed surveillance footage and could not say whether Dalton had touched the student inappropriately.

The Blount County District Attorney's Office later declined to prosecute the BCSO case on November 12, 2019, citing the difficulty of “proving sexual gratification.”

DCS

The DCS case, on the other hand, would take over a year. On February 12, 2020, DCS investigators sent letters to Murrell and Dalton informing them that they believed the allegations against the physical education teacher were substantiated. Dalton appealed the ruling and, after some delays due to the pandemic, the case finally went to trial on December 7, 2020.

After hearing arguments, DCS Administrative Law Judge Tara S. Moore ordered the allegations to be ruled “meritless” because there was insufficient evidence to prove the abuse ever occurred. The investigator in charge of the case is on vacation, she wrote, and the supervisor who represented the case in court provided three pieces of evidence: a video of an interview with the student and two DCS policy manuals.

Moore also pointed out procedural errors. The investigator never attempted to meet with Dalton, she wrote, nor did she interview any other children who might have witnessed the incident — even though DCS guidelines recommend it as best practice.

“In fact, there was a classroom full of witnesses and there was no testimony to support their disclosure,” she wrote.

That limited the case to Dalton's testimony versus the student's, which Moore didn't believe was credible anyway due to other factors. For example, she said Dalton testified that he didn't own a farm.

Moore also believed other allegations were “far-fetched,” such as the student's claim at the time of the incident in 2019 that her teacher had warned her about what Dalton did “last year.”

A 2018 police report filed by the SRO at Eagleton Elementary details allegations that school staff saw Dalton standing for an extended period of time and touching two girls, which made the school nurse “uneasy.” The incident is listed as “resolved,” a term law enforcement uses to say a case is closed.

Moore's ruling never mentions the security footage of the incident, and the tape does not appear on the evidence list.

School examination

BCS closed its investigation into Dalton's alleged actions in February 2021, saying the findings were “inconclusive.” Britt signed a letter reprimanding Dalton for “insubordination” for ignoring previous instructions on proper behavior toward students and told him to report to work at the Samuel Everett School of Innovation. BCS staff moved him back to a system-wide PE position two months later.

Dalton was arrested in January 2024 and later pleaded guilty to five counts of offensive touching. The allegations stemmed from incidents the year before. He faces a sentencing hearing Nov. 5 in Blount County General Sessions Court.