A former band director at Ernest Ward Middle School has been sentenced to 24 months in prison on a child sex charge. 35-year-old James McAllister pled guilty to one count of traveling to meet a minor to engage in sexual conduct. He was the band and chorus director at Ernest Ward Middle School from 2015 to 2017, but the charge against him was not connected to his employment at the school. He was apprehended during an undercover operation when he thought he was chatting online with a 14-year-old girl, but was actually an Escambia County Sheriff’s Department investigator. When he went to a local hotel to meet the girl he was arrested.