Horry teacher charged with child neglect was suspended eight months prior

Before her arrest on child neglect allegations, an Ocean Bay Elementary special education teacher had her license suspended and was placed on administrative leave eight months earlier.

Grace McColgan, 60, was arrested on Nov. 2 and charged with six counts of unlawful conduct towards a child.

The alleged conduct involved smacking students with disabilities across the head, hitting a child on their arm, and purposefully leaving a child in a bathroom for an extended period, according to redacted witness statements.

McColgan’s education license is currently suspended, pending the outcome of the investigation.

For this incident, McColgan was placed on administrative leave on Oct. 11, more than four weeks before her arrest. However, she was placed on administrative leave eight months earlier for a different incident.

Personnel files obtained by The Sun News show that McColgan was put on administrative leave on Feb. 15 for “unprofessional conduct,” and was allowed to return to the school on March 30. It’s not clear what the unprofessional conduct was during this time.

Rebecca Schroyer, 47, principal of Ocean Bay Elementary was also arrested in November and charged with two counts of failure to report child neglect allegations. One of these incidents occurred in February and involved McColgan allegedly rubbing hand sanitizer on a student’s open wound, according to an arrest warrant.

Schroyer was placed on administrative leave Nov. 1 and arrested the following day. Both the principal and teacher are currently on administrative leave with pay while the investigation continues.

This story was originally published November 17, 2022 at 9:42 AM.