California coach was considered for promotion after girl accused him of harassment, emails show

San Luis Obispo High School officials considered promoting teacher and coach Jeffrey Brandow months after obtaining records showing he had acted inappropriately toward a student, newly released emails from the San Luis Coastal Unified School District show.

More than three months after the student’s family shared text messages documenting alleged misconduct by Brandow, the coach received an email on Feb. 1 with this subject line: “Interview on 2/17.”

At 12:25 p.m. that day, San Luis Obispo High School Principal Rollin Dickinson wrote to Brandow thanking him for applying to the athletics director position at the school.

“We would like to invite you for an in-person interview,” the email continued. “We will have a panel of admin, coaches, teacher-coaches and classified staff who will enjoy engaging with you during the interview.”

The interview was scheduled, according to the emails provided to The Tribune in response to a Public Records Act request, well after school officials received two tips regarding inappropriate behavior by Brandow toward a 17-year-old female student in his history class and the school had obtained evidence of Brandow allegedly sending sexual texts to the student.

The school district sent The Tribune 73 pages of emails detailing communications between Brandow and district staff regarding the investigation into his alleged misconduct involving the student.

In March, a month after the interview for the athletics director position was scheduled to take place, Brandow was placed on paid administrative leave — at which time district officials said they had obtained enough evidence regarding his inappropriate behavior to do so. It’s unclear whether Brandow was ever interviewed for the promotion.

In an August meeting, the school district’s board of trustees voted during a closed session to fire Brandow. He has since appealed that vote, and a formal hearing is expected to be held within the next year to determine whether the district had the evidence needed to terminate him, according to district superintendent Eric Prater.

However, the now-graduated student and her parents — who asked not to be identified to protect the student’s identity — told The Tribune the district had enough evidence to place Brandow on leave in October 2022.

Thanks to the delayed action, the student suffered emotional distress and lost most of her friends during her senior year in high school, the family told The Tribune.

“He was still on campus, so (the district was insinuating) he must be innocent,” the student’s dad said.

“It was horrible,” the student said. “I lost all my friends. No one knew what to think.”

Victim said she showed school ‘creepy’ text messages from Brandow at start of investigation

The student told her parents she’d previously avoided telling anyone about the inappropriate text messages sent to her from Brandow because she “didn’t want to ruin his life,” her mom said.

But after the district received anonymous reports of Brandow’s behavior in the fall of 2022, San Luis Obispo High School Assistant Principal Desiree Dellinger requested the student leave class to meet in Dellinger’s office on Oct. 18, 2022, according to the family.

During that meeting, “I showed her everything,” the student said, adding that a school resource officer was also present during the meeting.

That “everything” included the text messages from Brandow’s personal phone number asking the student to meet him at a bar late at night, flirtatious notes, and comments about what he wanted to do to her sexually, the student said. The student said Dillinger took photos of the texts.

“And I told her everything he had said to me and what I saw he said to the other students about their bodies,” she told The Tribune. “He was gross and super creepy.”

The student’s mom blamed the school for not acting on the information immediately.

“This was allowed to happen,” the student’s mom said. “They chose to not believe the evidence they had from the start.”

Prater, however, told The Tribune the evidence from that first report “was pretty weak.”

Therefore, he said, the district couldn’t place Brandow on leave until it had gathered more information confirming the extent of his behavior.

“Throughout this process, San Luis Coastal acted swiftly and urgently to protect student safety within the limits of the law,” Prater wrote in a written statement to The Tribune.

SLO High School coach on paid leave over alleged inappropriate behavior with student

The family has since filed a civil lawsuit in San Luis Obispo Superior Court, alleging the student was the victim of “grooming, manipulation, intimidation and unwanted physical touching” by Brandow.

The lawsuit also alleges Brandow had a history of inappropriate behavior involving other district staff and a former KSBY reporter.

Emails show school staff held off speaking to victim’s parents until after meeting with Brandow

During the October 2022 meeting with the student, the school principal, Dickinson, walked in to listen, the student said.

At one point, the student was detailing how Brandow would comment on students’ bodies — asking some if it was a “tits-out, ass-out kind of day” when they wore low-cut shirts or short shorts, she said.

Dickinson interjected and asked if Brandow was just trying to remind students of the dress code “in a nice way,” the student recalled.

When the meeting ended, the student went home and “kept it to myself because I didn’t know what to think,” she said.

The next day, however, she knew she would have to walk past Brandow’s classroom to get to another class. So, instead, she left the school and drove to her sister at Cal Poly.

“It was the only thing I could do,” the student told The Tribune, adding that she broke down sobbing to her sister while telling her the details of Brandow’s behavior toward her.

The student’s mom then got a notification via the school’s messaging system, Parent Square, that her daughter had missed class.

She learned that her daughter was upset about inappropriate behavior from Brandow, but because she was at work, she had not had the chance for a full conversation with her daughter about what happened, she told The Tribune.

Later that same day, the mom asked Dellinger to call her on her cellphone to discuss the meeting she’d had with her daughter the day before.

Dellinger responded at 1:48 p.m. that she was “in a meeting, but I’ll call you in about 20 minutes,” according to district email records.

At 2:20 p.m., Dellinger again wrote to the mom to let her know that “my meeting is going way longer than expected.”

“Sorry about that,” Dellinger wrote. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

Ten minutes later, Dellinger had a scheduled meeting with Dickinson with the subject line: “Meeting w/ Brandow,” records show.

That evening, Dellinger called the mom while she was at the grocery store and they discussed some of what the student had said during the meeting the day before.

“I wasn’t prepared. I had barely talked to (my daughter) about any of it yet,” the mom said.

Family asked school to remove Brandow from campus while investigation was underway

In his statement, Prater said the district “planned to meet with the family about this situation the very next day” after making contact with the student’s mother, “but that meeting was canceled by the family.”

At 8:15 p.m. that night, the student’s mom emailed Dellinger, Dickinson, Prater and school counselor Heather Senecal informing them that the family had been advised by an attorney to not meet with district officials until “the texts have been retrieved from (the student’s) phone,” the email records show.

“Should this teacher remain on campus, he is not to have contact with her,” the mom wrote in the email. “Please know this is not a situation where we ‘lawyered up,’ however, the fact that (the) teacher is still on campus gives us doubt to the seriousness in which this situation is being taken.”

Dickinson responded via email later that night, noting the school was “taking this very seriously.”

“We need to do a thorough investigation to determine what occurred and whether any of our policies have been violated,” Dickinson wrote. “You are right that beyond sharing about texting with (redacted), (redacted) did share her concerns about inappropriate verbal communication between (redacted) and her friends regarding their clothing.”

Names of individuals in the email records were redacted by the school district to facilitate disclosure, according to the district’s attorney, Daniel McElhinney.

On Dec. 13, 2022, during an email exchange between San Luis Coastal Unified School District’s director of human resources Dan Block and the student’s mom, Block noted that the district was still investigating.

“At this point in our investigation, we do not have any evidence that supports removing a teacher from their assignment,” Block’s email said. “If you have access to text messages or other evidence that supports removing a teacher, we need this evidence to thoroughly investigate the allegations. Without it, we need to respect the employee’s right to due process.”

In response, the mom wrote: “I know the district knows these texts took place; I know two reports were made via in-person and the hotline regarding his inappropriate behavior,” the email records show.

“The district has evidence of what he has said to (redacted) to her face and in front of other students,” the email continued. “The district has been told that (redacted) cornered (redacted) and would not let her leave her job on a Saturday at the pumpkin patch until she deleted the text ‘because shit is going down.’”

Block responded, asking the family to “provide and (sic) relevant information that supports your allegations,” even though the school had photos of the text messages. He also said that officials “have not had an opportunity to meet with you and formally interview you or (redacted) with our investigator.”

Police: No criminal case against former SLO High coach accused of sexual harassing student

The next email exchange shared with The Tribune was among Brandow, Dickinson and Block on Dec. 22, 2022.

Brandow emailed the others to notify them that the student’s family had attended a basketball game the night before and taken photos of him. His wife and three children “were visibly shaken, as (the mom) attending and taking photos of me was the talk of the crowd,” Brandow wrote in his email.

“Thank you for letting us know, and I am sorry that this was an unsettling experience for your family,” Dickinson responded. “As I said last night, you did a great job coaching our team.”

Then, on Feb. 1, Dickinson emailed Brandow to let him know about the interview for the athletic director position.

School district placed Brandow on paid leave after meeting with victim in March

Five days after the interview was scheduled to take place, the student’s mom emailed Block to let him know that their attorney “has been trying to contact the district to set up an appointment with no response.”

“You asked us to bring forward any and all evidence to support our claim that (redacted) inappropriately texted (redacted),” the email said. “We have that information.”

“To see (redacted) on campus, living his life and coaching basketball, is unfathomable to us,” the email continued. “As previously stated, we are asking that (redacted) be removed from campus pending the investigation so that (redacted) can finish her senior year without the trauma and anxiety (redacted’s) presence is causing on a daily basis.”

Block responded, letting the mom know he had left a voicemail with the attorney and noted that to his knowledge, he had “not received any communication prior to your email today,” the email records show.

Finally, in early March, the day after the meeting with district officials and the family, Brandow was placed on paid administrative leave.

It wasn’t until five months later, in August, that the school district determined it had adequate evidence to fire Brandow.

SLO High School teacher to be fired after alleged inappropriate behavior with student

In his statement, Prater maintains that “school administrators were in regular and repeated contact with the student’s parents,” and it had received “contradictory, secondhand information” prior to the March meeting.

“Throughout this process, San Luis Coastal acted swiftly and urgently to protect student safety within the limits of the law,” Prater wrote in his statement.

The lawsuit filed by the family against the school district alleges the San Luis Obispo High School administration was more concerned about Brandow coaching the men’s basketball team to a league championship than it was about the student’s health and well-being.

“The allegations that Mr. Brandow was retained because San Luis Coastal wanted him to coach basketball are unequivocally false,” Prater wrote. “San Luis Coastal has an obligation to ensure schools are safe, and we take that obligation very seriously. We believe the schools in San Luis Coastal are safe.”

“San Luis Coastal is following the legally required process to terminate a tenured teacher for their misconduct,” Prater’s statement continued. “Tenured teachers are entitled to due process.”

Brandow has appealed the district’s decision to fire him, Prater said. Therefore, the district must go through a formal hearing process overseen by an administrative law judge and two panel members appointed by the employer and employee.

“If a school district fails to win the ... hearing, the district would be ordered to pay the employee’s back pay, attorney’s fees and all hearing costs and expenses,” Prater’s statement said. “The employer would also be ordered to return the employee to work.”

San Luis Coastal Unified School District statement on fired teacher Jeffrey Brandow by Kaytlyn Leslie on Scribd