Santa Rosa Schools Superintendent Karen Barber said Thursday she was unaware of the arrest of former Gulf Breeze High School student Matthew McChesney until Aug. 1, but that did little to quell the anger of parents and residents who packed Thursday’s school board meeting.
McChesney, a 2025 Gulf Breeze High School graduate, was arrested July 14 by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office on an out of county warrant and charged with 20 counts of possession of child pornography and three counts of electronic transmission of child pornography in Santa Rosa County.
Images and videos found on McChesney’s electronics depicted graphic sexual abuse of children as young as infants to 14 years old, according to the Santa Rosa Sheriff’s Office.
“Santa Rosa County District (Schools) administration was not involved in the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s ongoing and thorough investigation beyond the initial notification that law enforcement was going to interview the student on campus. The district was not kept apprised of any additional information,” Barber said at the Santa Rosa School Board monthly meeting Thursday.
“District administration became aware of the arrest and the details of the charges on Friday, Aug. 1.”
McChesney was interviewed at Gulf Breeze High School, where he was then a student, on May 8 and in that interview confessed to investigators that they would find child pornography on his phone and computer. He was not arrested that day, but his phone was seized as well as a desktop computer from the McChesney’s home.
McChesney’s mother, Kim McChesney, is assistant principal of Gulf Breeze Elementary school. She was formally put on administrative leave with pay effective Aug. 4, when the school district began its own investigation. The school board named Bobbie Lewter as interim assistant principal at the elementary school.
It is not known whether Kim McChesney told other administrators at Gulf Breeze elementary or high school that her son had confessed. She did, however, allow her son to take part in the Senior Walk tradition at Gulf Breeze Elementary on May 21, two weeks after his confession.
“I believe she prioritized her son’s experience and her own reputation over the safety of our children, and in doing so, damaged the trust of the parents,” said Laura Dane, the mother of two daughters, including one who is a Gulf Breeze Elementary student. “This is not the first time, and I think you all know this, she has shown support or sympathy for someone, I would call a pedophile or child predator.”
Gulf Breeze Elementary parent Kyle Connolly said Matthew McChesney’s participation in the Senior Walk was a security failure.
“That was an insult to every parent who trusts this district to protect our kids. I’m not here for your excuses or to watch you wipe fake tears. I’m here for answers,” said Connolly, who also questioned how Barber did not know Matthew McChesney was under investigation for child pornography and why Gulf Breeze Elementary’s principal, Monica Garcia, did not know her assistant principal’s son was under investigation.
In addition to the Senior Walk, Matthew McChesney was not kept isolated from other students at Gulf Breeze High School after his interview with investigators until the end of the school year.
Derrick Games, the father of two Gulf Breeze High students, scolded board members for forcing parents to wait over two hours to speak about the matter.
The nearly three-hour meeting started at 9 a.m., with public comments starting just after 11.
“After sitting through this, what bothers me more is it took two hours and 10 minutes for us to be able to come up and express our frustrations. We had to sit through a charter school that had two students in the whole county. Y’all gave them 30-something minutes. Y’all knew the people were going to be upset, you knew people were going to voice their opinions and y’all made us wait two hours and something to be able to come up here and do this,” Games told board members.
“Y’all had a chance to show the parents that you’re with us and you understood. You understood our frustrations. I don’t understand it. You knew today this was going to be addressed. Why wait so long to let us address it?”
Barber planned to hold one-on-one meetings with Gulf Breeze Elementary parents from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and again on Monday to speak with parents about the McChesney case.
The Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office began investigating Matthew McChesney in March after receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to an arrest report filed in Santa Rosa County Circuit Court.
The police report stated that the NCMEC received a tip from Discord Inc., which runs the popular messaging and voice chat app with the same name, that a user with an IP address in the Gulf Breeze region had used the app to share child pornography.
The IP address traced back to an account at a Gulf Breeze address. In May, the Santa Rosa Sheriff’s office conducted a search warrant on the home and interviewed Matthew McChesney on May 8 at Gulf Breeze High School, where he was a student at the time.
The report said Matthew McChesney told police he had lost access to the Discord account for a period of time. When the officer asked Matthew McChesney why he thought the account had been flagged, he told the officer it was because he was “sharing pictures of young people.” He told the officer the people in the images were unknown to him and he never met anyone in person, according to the report.
He also told police officers there would be child pornography on his phone and his computer. Police seized his phone during the interview as well as a desktop computer from Matthew McChesney’s home.
A forensic investigation into the devices was completed on June 27, which found multiple images and videos depicting graphic sexual abuse of children as young as infants to 14 years old. The videos were downloaded to the computer and phone over a three-month period from February to March.
Pensacola News Journal reporter Jim Little contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Who knew what – and when – in Gulf Breeze child porn case? Asst. principal put on leave
Reporting by Mary Lett, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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