Teacher arrested for assaulting two students at Lexington County school, SC sheriff says

A man who's a teacher at a Columbia-area school was arrested for assaulting two students this year, according to the Lexington County Sheriff's Department .

Jermaine Cornelius Singletary, 51, was charged with two counts of third-degree assault & battery , the sheriff's department said Wednesday in a news release.

The sheriff's department said Singletary teaches at Irmo Middle School . The Lexington-Richland 5 school is on Wesctott Road near the intersection with St. Andrews Road, in the area of Columbia between Harbison Boulevard and Lake Murray Boulevard .

While Singletary is listed on the roster of teachers on the school's website, a link to his bio leads to an error page.

"School District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties received notification that a district employee has been arrested," L-R 5 officials told The State when asked about Singletary. "We are cooperating fully with law enforcement in their investigation, and the employee is on administrative leave."

The assaults involved two students in incidents that were separated by several months this year, according to the sheriff's department release.

Singletary struck a student in March after he thought the student touched his head, the sheriff's department said. The teacher hit another student in October after the student retrieved portion of an assignment Singletary threw in a trash can, according to the release.

Information on the students' conditions, and if they needed any medical treatment, was not available.

Singletary did not report either incident to school administrators, the sheriff's department said.

"When we became aware of these two incidents, we opened our investigation and determined Singletary allegedly assaulted two students on two separate occasions," Sheriff Jay Koon said in the release.

Singletary turned himself in Wednesday morning and was booked into the Lexington County Detention Center, the sheriff's department said. No bond has been set and Singletary remains locked up, jail records show.

Following a bond hearing, the Columbia resident is scheduled to return to court on Nov. 19, Lexington County judicial records show.

If convicted on the misdemeanor assault & battery charges, Singletary faces a maximum punishment of 30 days in jail and a $500 fine for each count, according to South Carolina law.

There was no word what a conviction would mean to Singletary's status with L-R 5, and if he would lose his teaching certification.