Update on the newspaper article

OK, I really should never vent here again about how stressful this School Board thing is. Because I always go off about three hours too soon.

What I found out yesterday: the articles in the papers, the parent upset, the papers' securing "freedom on information act" access to the police report; all of that was one big hit job.

All this angst, all the drama, it's been totally orchestrated by two, count that, TWO people in the community.

One is our most recently resigned former Superintendent, who called the present Interim Superintendent to complain about the way the "hit list" issue was handled. And the other is our most recently resigned former Board Member, who accused us all of malfeasance on her way out the door. She also called the current Interim Superintendent to complain that she didn't know anything about a "hit list." (Neither did anyone else, silly woman. Only the people who were targeted by the "hit list" were contacted by police as part of their investigation. The police ASKED US not to imform the larger community until they had finished the first phase of the investigation.)

So, how many upset parents called the high school after the presence of the "hit list" was leaked to the anonymous message board? One. The former School Board member.

How many upset parents called the Superintendent concerned about their children's safety afer the presence of the "hit list" was leaked to the anonymous message board? Two. The former school board member and the former Superintendent.

Where did they get the information that there was a "hit list"? From the wife of one of the policemen investigating the case.

Why did the newspapers run articles about this issue? Because the former school board member called the papers to indict a sitting school board member, indicating that the police report said that she was uncooperative.

There's no wide scale parent upset--two people.

There's no ongoing threat--we have plainsclothes policemen on site just to make sure.

There's no refusal to cooperate--the school board member's daughter was a TARGET of the alleged "hit list", and the parent asked that all interviews of her minor daughter be conducted at her home with her parents present.

I fucking hate politics.

This morning when I dropped my kindergartner off I was surrounded by panicked parents who have read the paper and who want to know why they aren't told about "incidents" at the High School.

I didn't say this, but I wanted to say, "Because, you fucking morons, there are incidents at your High School every week. There are incidents at every High School in this country every day. Not every incident is worthy of reporting. It panics people to have their emergency dialer go off every day--we'd lke to reserve that for an actual emergency."

You want to know every time a student bangs another student into a locker? Because we call the police on those, and they investigate it. You want to know every time a normally active and bright student has a psychotic episode in the parking lot because of drug interactions? Because we call the crisis manager out to investigate and offer counseling for those too. You want to know every time there's grafitti which mimics but isn't actually gang signals? Because we call the crisis manager and the police out to investigate those too.

The most recent gun on campus incident in California resulted in every child in the school calling their parents on cell phones. The police, including the district coordinator responsible for communicating with crisis teams, SWAT teams, ambulances, and cops, could not reach the scene. The district coordinator had to park, get this, Two Miles Away. All the parents had parked in front of the school. No room for police.

So, to sum up. We had a possible crisis, and we asked the police to investigate.

Turns out that the "hit list" may not even have been current, and it certainly wasn't valid. However, a wife of an Investigating Officer (God, that makes me mad) told her buddy over coffee that a sitting school board member was making extra demands of the police. So to stick it to the sitting board member, to make her out to be a meddlesome witch, the whole thing is sent to the papers to demonstrate how upet the entire community is.

What bullshit.