7:14 p.m.: Highland official placed on leave

By Barrett Newkirk

May 16, 2008 07:15 pm

— ANDERSON — A school official is on administrative leave for undisclosed reasons.
Albert Young, assistant principal at Highland High School, has not been working at the school since May 16 because of “personnel reasons,” said Mikella Lowe, Anderson Community Schools Superintendent.
She would not give an explanation for the leave, saying only, “He is not working right now.”
Young, 55, has been Highland’s assistant principal for three years. He joined ACS in 2004 as assistant principal at North Side Middle School and then moved to Highland High School because of staff shuffling necessitated by the corporation’s construction projects, Lowe said.
Young, who could not be reached for comment Friday, previously worked for Lawrence Township schools in Indianapolis and Carmel Clay Schools, where he was assistant principal of Carmel Junior High School.
In March 2001, Young was found not guilty in a case where a sixth-grade teacher at Lawrence Township schools accused him of criminal confinement and battery.
When ACS hired Young three years later, the corporation was questioned at a public meeting about the charges. Personnel Manager Richard Dickerson and school board member Keith Millikan stated then that a criminal background check had been done and that the charges were not a concern because they’d been dropped.
On Friday, Millikan declined to discuss Young’s leave of absence.