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Former Teaneck High Principal Joe White has agreed to plead guilty to the charges of downloading child pornography and persuading a student to show his genitals.

Here's my (very accurate, though with awkward use of verb tenses!) quote from the front-page article in the Record about his guilty plea:

Supporters believed in him so much that they consider his arrest for sexual misconduct an indictment of their own judgment.

"It's like someone telling you the world is flat," said Joe Grossberg, a software engineer who went to Teaneck High School in the early 1990s when White was a vice principal. "He was the most strait-laced, ethical man on the planet. Not in a million years would I ever guess something like this. There has got to be some kind of explanation."

I still think Mr. White is a great guy — a great guy who did a bad, stupid and reckless thing. This episode has taught me a lot about the nature of right and wrong, sin and sinners, trust and betrayal, anger and forgiveness.

What he did was really fucked up, and should have consequences — and I feel really let down and disappointed, especially after supporting him through the first trial — but I can't hate him.

I will write him. I may visit him.

I hope people learn from this: that not everyone who does something bad is a bad person; that even great human beings can have horrible flaws; that if you have a problem (e.g. you're a high school principal who can't control his urges to see nude boys), you should get help before you act on it.