Charges dropped against second Chaffee County day care worker

A second Chaffee County day care worker charged with child abuse after a pants-down incident in a room of preschoolers and toddlers will not go to trial. 

Chaffee County prosecutors on Tuesday filed a motion to drop the charge against Roberta Rodriguez, former director of The Schoolhouse in Poncha Springs. Rodriguez had been charged with failure to report child abuse after a 5-year-old boy at the day care center was accused of pulling down a classmate’s pants and diaper while the teacher stepped out of the room to start a load of laundry. 

The community, and especially The Schoolhouse families, had rallied around Rodriguez, a single mom with six children. They started a fund to pay her rent. “Mysteriously I would go to pay my utilities and it would be paid,” she said,…