DINKINS
GIBSON CITY — On Monday, the day after the deadline for Robbie Dinkins to appeal the termination of his employment as a Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley teacher and coach, Superintendent Jeremy Darnell said no notice of an appeal had been received yet.
“As of right now, I have not received any notification of appeal from Mr. Dinkins,” Darnell said in an email late Monday afternoon.
“The request must be postmarked by May 11th, so it could be a couple of more days before receiving anything in the mail. Next steps will be dependent on if a formal appeal is presented in the next couple of days.”
Dinkins, who was fired on April 23 amid an ongoing police investigation into claims that he maintained inappropriate relationships with students, was given 17 days — through Sunday, May 11 — to notify Darnell in writing of his request for a hearing to be held before either a mutually agreed-upon hearing officer, with the cost split between the board and Dinkins, or a board-selected hearing officer, paid for in full by the board.
Dinkins told the Ford County Chronicle on Monday that he mailed his appeal notice to Darnell “at the end of last week” and expects the unit office “to have it tomorrow.”
Dinkins — who taught eighth-grade math and coached eighth-grade boys’ basketball and boys’ track at GCMS Middle School and was head coach of the Fisher/GCMS High School cooperative soccer team — has declined to comment to the Chronicle about the accusations against him, which included repeatedly crossing “the boundaries” of the employee-student relationship “to such an extent” that students’ parents “perceived (his) actions as the grooming of these children for sexual abuse,” according to a letter sent by the board to Dinkins and obtained last month by the Ford County Chronicle.
As of Monday, no criminal charges had been filed in Ford County Circuit Court against Dinkins.
Over seven years as the head soccer coach of the Fisher/GCMS Bunnies, Dinkins posted a 116-24-9 record, including an IHSA Class 1A round-of-16 postseason appearance last fall. Before coaching the eighthgrade boys’ basketball team in the 2024-25 season, Dinkins served as an assistant coach for the high school’s boys’ basketball team, as well.
Prior to working at GCMS, Dinkins was an eighth-grade student teacher at Wilmington Middle School in fall 2011 and worked in a sixthgrade teaching practicum at Franklin Middle School in fall 2010 and an eighth-grade practicum at Cumberland Middle School in Toledo in spring 2011.
He previously was employed as a forklift operator at FedEx in Effingham in summer 2010, as a driver/ service technician for Wilmington Backyard Pools in Wilmington in the summers of 2008 and 2009, as a laborer for J.P. Larson in Chicago in 2006 and as a forklift operator at Menard’s in Joliet in 2005 and 2006.