Va. school counselor continued working for months after conviction of soliciting minor for sex

A sex offender continued working for a major Virginia school district for months after he was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution, state records show. 

Fifty-year-old Darren Thornton began working for Glasgow Middle School in Virginia's Fairfax County in the fall of 2020 and continued working there not only after his arrest in November of that year for soliciting a minor for sex but even after his conviction for that crime in March of 2022. 

Police in Chesterfield County, where the arrest took place, claimed that they notified the superintendent of the Fairfax school system at the time the arrest occurred. 

"The November 2020 arrest, our records show, and our records folks are pretty diligent about that and keep record of who they notify and how, our records indicate that the superintendent at the time was emailed," Chesterfield County Sgt. Winfred Lewis told local news station WJLA this week. 

Lewis told the news station that Thornton was actually arrested again in June in Chesterfield County "on a prostitution sting" and that police officers upon arresting him again were "surprised and a bit confused to learn Thornton was still working for Fairfax County Public Schools," as the network reported. 

Thornton has since been dismissed from the Fairfax system, with school Superintendent Michelle Reid telling WJLA that "there is nothing about this situation that is acceptable."

"I want to assure you that as soon as the School Board and I knew of the situation, we took immediate steps to dismiss the employee," Reid told families in an email this month.