Details have been released on a previous battery case against the Greenbrier High School teacher and girls’ basketball coach who was charged last month with assaulting her daughter during a game.
GHS science teacher Zakeya Goldsberry was charged Jan. 13 with simple battery for allegedly shoving her daughter who played on the team that she coached. She no longer works for the district, school officials said Wednesday.
Goldsberry’s case has been submitted to the district’s human resources department for further investigation, and the school’s athletic director Garrett Black stepped in to coach the team for the rest of the season. A school website no longer lists Goldsberry as a teacher.
News of the arrest led to the discovery that Goldsberry had skirted a 2020 battery and trespass case in Gwinnett County after taking anger management courses. It is something she told the school district before she was hired.
According to a report obtained by The Augusta Press, Goldsberry was accused of pushing her ex-husband Edmund Goldsberry into his vehicle as well as biting him and scratching his face on July 26, 2020. The former couple had been married for 20 years and had three children together.
The two of them were in the parking lot of the Courtyard Marriott – Duluth, where both of them were staying because their child was participating in a sporting event in the area.
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Mr. Goldsberry said he was loading bags after checking out of the hotel when his ex-wife “slammed into his door.”
“His ex-wife pinned him between the car frame and the door area,” a report says. “She continued to throw punches, scratch and bite him as he tried to keep her away from him.”
Mr. Goldsberry told officers that his ex-wife seemed bitter and angry about their divorce that had happened about eight or nine months before. She told him she hated him and “congratulated him on the divorce,” the victim said.
Officers found Mr. Goldsberry with a visible injury to his left bicep from being bitten. His shirt was also ripped.
Mr. Goldsberry said he didn’t want his ex-wife charged, but they arrested her based on the evidence of the violent assault. Ms. Goldsberry went through trial diversion and got the charges dropped after taking anger management, according to school records. She was hired by the Columbia County School District last summer.
In her application to the Columbia County school system, Goldsberry said she pleaded not guilty in the 2020 case, went through trial diversion and anger management to clear all charges and avoid the time it would take to go through the trial.
She was hired as biology teacher at an annual salary of $67,925 and named as coach of the girls’ basketball team.
On Jan. 13, video shows the Greenbrier team walking into the locker room at halftime when Ms. Goldsberry allegedly shoved her daughter into the wall.
“The force of the shove almost caused both parties to fall to the ground,” the report says.
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The victim began punching back in self-defense, and the mother and daughter were separated by bystanders and teammates, the report says.
According to the report, Goldsberry claimed she was attempting to communicate with her daughter but she ignored her. So she grabbed the victim and pushed her into the wall.
Goldsberry has previously been employed at Glenn Hills High School, McDuffie County Schools, Westminster Schools of Augusta, and Aiken County Public Schools.
Superintendent Dr. Steven Flynt defended the district’s decision to hire Goldsberry in a statement to The Augusta Press.
“Prior to employment with the Columbia County School District, Ms. Goldsberry had previously been involved in a separate, non-school related incident in 2020 in Gwinnett County, resulting in charges of criminal trespass and battery, following a domestic incident between her and her husband,” the statement said. “The charges were ultimately dropped. Her entire employment record and all listed reports were taken into consideration upon her recent hiring in 2022, with a strong recommendation for employment, from the school’s previous principal.”
Greg Rickabaugh is the Jail Report contributor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at greg.rickabaugh@theaugustapress.com
Employers always provide “with a strong recommendation for employment” for the employees they want to get rid of, and out of fear of being sued if they provide a true, negative recommendation. This article made me think of ex-Fire Chief James, who, IIRC, received some glowing recommendations from ARC when he went looking for a new job. I found this nugget about the ongoing ambulance crisis. https://www.ems1.com/fire-ems/articles/ga-fire-dept-pushes-to-take-over-ems-duties-uJdQdODKAKyJO5oe/
Now that was a good read from 2017 by Susan McCord
This woman should never coach again.