Vallejo student dragged by teacher sues county, charter school

VALLEJO – A middle school student who was dragged out of class by a Vallejo substitute teacher last year is suing Solano County, the school and an education staffing agency for alleged negligent hiring and supervision practices because of the teacher’s alleged history of misconduct around children. 

Video of the incident was broadcast on KTVU and showed the teacher, identified as 41-year-old Noah Dove, dragging the student out of class. The lawsuit alleges that Elite was warned about another alleged violent incident at a different Vallejo charter school but continued to employ him anyway.

According to the lawsuit, on May 20, 2024, the thirteen-year-old student pulled out her phone to obtain log-in information for an exam that she was about to take on a school-provided laptop. Dove, who is 6 feet 7 inches tall and weighs 200 pounds, stood behind the student visibly upset about her use of the phone. 

Dove had allegedly aggressively pushed other students in the class to hurry them up that day. The lawsuit states that the student felt uncomfortable by Dove’s towering presence and stood up while explaining her need to access the log-in information that was saved on her phone. Dove allegedly grabbed the student’s jacket and as she resisted he pulled her to the floor. 

Dove then grabbed the student by her ankles and began dragging her toward the door of the classroom, which can be seen on the cell phone video that was recorded by another student and later broadcast in news reports. 

According to the lawsuit, after dragging the student to the classroom entryway where the student struggled free of Dove’s grasp he then blocked her path to exit the building as she tried to flee. 

The student eventually escaped the classroom and contacted her family to pick her up from school. The lawsuit states that the student had to wait in fear for 45 minutes until a family member arrived to pick her up.

The student’s family is suing Solano County due to the office of education’s oversight responsibility of the school district and its charter schools. The suit names defendants Elite Public Schools charter school for their responsibility in hiring and failing to supervise Dove, the staffing agency, Scoot Education, for its role in Dove’s employment and Dove as the alleged perpetrator of assault and battery on the student.

The family alleges that the defendants failed in their duty to protect the student because, prior to the incident, the agencies and organizations were aware or should have been aware that Dove had a history of violent behavior around children and should not have been allowed to teach. 

The lawsuit points to a restraining order granted in 2020 to Vallejo mother Robin Horca related to her daughter’s account of ten incidents of abuse while on play dates with Dove’s daughter at the Dove family home. After a troubling incident in which the Horca observed Dove yelling at the girls, she spoke about it with her daughter who revealed that the behavior had been regularly occurring over the period of a year. 

The lawsuit cites a second separate incident that occurred in February or March of 2024 when Dove was teaching at Vallejo Charter School. Two other school employees observed Dove forcefully grabbing a six-year-old student by the arm tugging her so violently that her feet lifted up off the ground. The two employees provided statements describing the misconduct to Vallejo Charter School officials. 

Before the May 20 incident occurred, one of the employees who had witnessed the incident at Vallejo Charter School warned officials at Elite about Dove’s behavior, according to the lawsuit. 

The lawsuit claims that the combination of reports and publicly available court records would have clearly shown that Dove was unfit to teach if the required background check had been conducted properly.

The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages related to the cost of treatment for physical and emotional injuries. It also seeks damages related to the emotional stress of the incident and ongoing anxiety that the student suffers from as a result of the incident. 

Dove turned himself in to the Vallejo Department on May 21, the day after the incident,and officers arrested him on suspicion of a felony charge of corporal injury to a child. 

The Solano County County District Attorney’s Office said in an email that the case is still pending review to determine if the DA will file criminal charges against Dove.