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BISHOPVILLE -- Bishopville (WACH) - Adam Cox has been teaching in the public school system for 10 years, and spent nearly half of them at Lee Central High School.

In mid-October, Cox was suspended from his job for disciplining a disruptive student in 11^th grade English class.  He received an official termination notice two weeks ago.

On Thursday night, the Lee County school board upheld the decision to terminate Cox after a more than four-hour hearing.

Cox says a disruptive student refused to leave his classroom after being asked to do so.  Cox called a school administrator for help, and then slid the student’s desk out of the classroom when he didn’t get any assistance.

School district policy says a teacher must deal with a disruption in the classroom in a timely and consistent manner.  If the problem cannot be corrected, the teacher should refer the problem to the appropriate personnel.  Cox said he did that, but it was going to be awhile before someone could help.

“Mr. Cox came out of the room and said he had an unruly student in the room, and I told him to call administration,” testified the in-school suspension officer.

“There are so many different things that are possible in a classroom, in terms of interaction between the student and teacher, that if you try to cover everything that happened, “ says spokesman Jim Foster for the S.C. Department of Education, “the laws would read from here to the ocean and back.  It’s just not possible.”

There is no statewide standard governing teacher conduct in the classroom, it is left up to the individual school districts.

Cox can appeal the school board's decision.