Ex-Airport High admin given $30K bond as district letters detail her admission of 'love' for student

LEXINGTON COUNTY, SC (WIS) - Former Airport High School assistant principal Dawn Diimmler's "unprofessional relationship with a student" has been further detailed, according to information received from a Freedom of Information Act request.

A judge also set bond Monday for Diimmler at $30,000 personal recognizance. She has also been ordered to appear at her next hearing on April 5. She has been charged with sexual battery.

Over the weekend, we filed a FOIA requesting personnel information on Diimmler and Principal Brad Coleman -- specifically any disciplinary action taken against the two after they were both suspended in January.

While Lexington Two denied our request for some of those records, they did provide us with three letters dated Jan. 25, 2018, Jan. 31, 2018 and Feb. 13, 2018 addressed directly to Diimmler.

The Jan. 25 letter, written by District Superintendent William James, places Diimmler on administrative leave until a thorough investigation was completed into "a close relationship with a student who graduated in June 2017."

"Based on what has been reported," James wrote, "this relationship appears to have been beyond the bounds of what I would consider to be appropriate for an educator."

The second letter from Jan. 31 recalls a Jan. 29 meeting between Diimmler and Dr. Angela Cooper, the district's human resources manager.

In that letter, James said he reviewed several voicemail recordings between Diimmler and a second party who has not been identified. Those voicemails, according to the letter, include a confession and apology from Diimmler that she was "in love with" the second party's son.

A review of Diimmler's district-issued phone and email address corroborates that admission, the letter said. The voicemails came after Diimmler had been instructed by the district to not speak with the student or his family.

James goes on to recommend Diimmler's outright termination instead of a resignation, saying that evidence presented to him "manifests an evident unfitness for teaching."

Diimmler was terminated by the school district during a Feb. 12 meeting.

She appeared at her bond hearing Monday morning, but offered no comment as she left court.

Diimmler had been involved in education since at least 1995, documents from the district showed.

The letters sent as a part of our FOIA request to Lexington Co. School District Two are as follows: