Antonisha Chambers, 34, a first-grade teacher was arrested at her home in Fayetteville, North Carolina, this past Friday, along with Bradford Gordon, on drug trafficking charges. Detectives seized “over 4 pounds of methamphetamine during this investigation”, the Fayetteville Police Department said in a statement on Saturday. As well as possessing methamphetamine, the pair were accused of transporting the drug, more commonly known as crystal meth, from the property.

Ms. Chambers is a first-grade teacher at Honeycutt Elementary School in Fayetteville. Lindsay Whitley, an associate superintendent for Cumberland County Schools and spokesman for the Honeycutt school, told The Fayetteville Observer on Sunday that the school was aware of the arrest. “The arrest did not take place on the school campus and students were not made aware of this situation,” Ms. Whitley said. Ms. Whitley added “that Honeycutt Elementary and the school district in Fayetteville took the arrest “very seriously”.

Ms. Whitley declaimed that: “[W]hile these allegations are very disappointing, they do not overshadow the work that our employees do on a daily basis to help students succeed in the classroom and beyond. Prior to hiring employees, the district conducts extensive background checks and provides ethics training to employees once hired.” Police said both Ms. Chambers and Mr. Gordon were working in the US on visas. The Observer reported that she was hired by the Cumberland County School system in August 2021.