There has been a lot of teeth-gnashing about a column we ran Sunday by Scott Sexton. The column was mainly about the confrontation/event/incident involving Superintendent Don Martin and a parent of a student at Lewisville Elementary, where a suspended teacher has returned to work.
Our previous coverage of the suspension had not said what the teacher was being investigated for while the suspension with pay was in effect. Scott’s column did. The criticism we received—to paraphrase and summarize—runs along the lines that we erred by naming the nature of the allegations. Now that he has been allowed to return to teaching, the belief goes, he is still tarred for life and the allegations will live on in Google long after we have all turned to dust.
Our reporting is based on asking questions, and our writing is based on informing people to the greatest extent possible, not through arched eyebrows and knowing nods, but through words. Most parents at Lewisville already knew what the teacher was being investigated for, and it appears that a great deal of them supported him and felt that he had been wrongly accused.
We live in a day and age where two things are prevalent. First, people take much more seriously accusations that adults are abusing children, and second, that it doesn’t take much to get a mob mentality going on just a whiff of a problem.
I don’t like the image of a newspaper as the lead torch carrier out to get Frankenstein, and I don’t think we did that here. I talked with Scott, and his point—which I think is a good one—is that without an understanding of the seriousness of the allegation, it’s difficult to understand why a) the parent was so upset and b) Don Martin reacted the way he did.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
Ken,
I was one of the folks doing the gnashing and I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate the replies that Scott sent to my email inquiries to him about this issue. He and I agreed to disagree on some points, especially airing the specifics of the charge, and in the process I learned some things about the situation I didn’t know. It also helps to know that the decision to specify the charges was made with some reasoning behind it, not as an afterthought.
In my email exchange with Scott it became apparent that there’s a lot more to the behind the scenes story with the school system and the DA’s office than meets the eye. Setting aside the specific case of Lewisville I think there’s probably an important story to be told about the school system, its processes (or lack there of) for dealing with complaints, its methods of communicating with parents, its personnel management systems and its relationship with other county/city agencies. I’ve lived here for only 2 1/2 years and I’ve already seen two cases of bungling, this case and the Watson case. I hope this isn’t representative of the school system’s long-term performance, but let’s just say I don’t have a good feeling about this.
Thanks. I hear you. I don’t want to speak for the
WSFCS (and they probably don’t want me to either ...), but I will say that this is an incredibly difficult situation for them to handle, regardless of where you come down. They have lots of different constituents and you often can’t please them all even on the best of days.
I agree Ken. Really I should construct my criticism a little more carefully. It’s not that I don’t think they care, or that they are negligent or incompetent (I don’t know them well enough to make that call), but it seems that these cases are pointing to the need for better systems and processes for dealing with such circumstances. I pointed out that I’ve only been here for 2 1/2 years and I honestly don’t know if there’s a long-term history of such events happening in the school system. If so then I think it’s very fair to criticize the school system harshly for not dealing with these situations more effectively. On the other hand if this is the first time they’ve had a spate of such incidents then I think it’s fair to offer constructive criticism and then ask the school system to keep us abreast of how they’re going to better handle these situations in the future.
People need to understand there are thousands out to sue
over anything because of a couple of organizations that
like to sue to overflow the court system and destroy
our constitutional values. One is an admitted Communist
group. The sad part is the one proven not guilty has
to live through the accustion if untrue yet the accuser
gets by free. More emphasis needs to be put on helping
to clear the reputation of the accused and at the same
time the accuser needs to be punished for a false
accusation. This never happens. Over kill is worst
that not using enough common sense protection for the
teacher and students. Only a teacher knows the problems
in schools and lack of parental discipline of children
and non participation of parents in their child’s
school. The new age philosophy, “don’t tell my child
no because it will damage their self esteem” is far
too exaggerated. 1949 grad of Old Town Hi.
Post a comment
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.