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We erred. Consequently, we should retract final month’s endorsement of Eric Dillie for the Alameda County Board of Training.
As a substitute, we tepidly suggest Cheryl Prepare dinner-Kallio, a retired instructor who served on the Pleasanton Metropolis Council from 2006-14 for the Space 7 seat representing the Livermore Valley.
In vetting Dillie, we missed our personal story about his no-contest plea to a 2016 misdemeanor cost of failing to report suspected baby abuse. State legislation requires faculty personnel to instantly notify police or baby protecting providers after they know or suspect a scholar has been abused.
The case stems from an incident involving a international change scholar at Livermore Valley Constitution Preparatory College, the place Dillie was principal. In response to a police court docket declaration, a tutor humiliated the 14-year-old scholar in entrance of others throughout an afterschool program, prompting the coed to go away the campus.
The coed was discovered behind an area grocery retailer, the place the tutor grabbed him by his arms, picked him up and shoved him right into a automobile head first earlier than driving him again to the college. The coed sustained a laceration to his shin and complained of ache to his knees.
The subsequent morning, the tutor knowledgeable the vice principal of the incident. The vice principal notified Dillie. However neither contacted the coed to test on his situation nor notified authorities.
In response to the police declaration, Dillie and the vice principal joked in regards to the abuse incident, mentioned it with others and minimized what occurred. Dillie additionally supplied completely different, inconsistent statements to investigators.
Dillie continues to reduce what occurred. In retelling the story to us in a follow-up interview, he made no point out of the coed’s accidents. He famous that he later withdrew his no-contest plea and the prosecutor dismissed the case.
However that was after Dillie accomplished 30 hours of court-ordered volunteer work and coaching on necessary reporting of kid abuse. The dismissal was a part of a course of that enables first-time offenders who've accomplished court-ordered circumstances to wipe prison convictions from their information. It's not an exoneration of a defendant’s unique habits.
None of that modifications our misgivings about his two opponents.
Throughout our interview, Prepare dinner-Kallio incorrectly noticed the accountability of a county faculty board trustee to incorporate oversight of native faculty district funds, which is strictly the purview of the elected county superintendent of colleges. However she has political expertise and, of the 2 opponents, is mounting the extra critical marketing campaign.
The opposite candidate, Kate Dao, the founder and head of a small Livermore non-public faculty, appeared fuzzy about why she was operating and unclear about some tasks of the job.
As for Dillie, whereas he has paid his dues, the difficulty for us is whether or not he deserves a seat on the county Board of Training. His dealing with of this incident tells us he doesn't.