A thought regarding the Lebanon School District

An observation: Sherrie Springer (and to an extent Jim Robinson) wield the advice from the District's legal counsel like a club.

Thing is, it's a club that no one outside the board ever sees. It's perpetually hidden, but everyone is told to trust that it's there and that it says what Sprenger says it does (yeah yeah yeah - I get that the whole board sees the advice, but that doesn't seem to matter to either the other board members or the public). I get the feeling that not only was the public's trust for Sprenger never very high, but that her use of this method has eroded it to just about zero. Possibly negative.

For example: Near the end of Monday's meeting, Sprenger cited the advice from legal counsel as a reason not to entertain the motion to let Kim Fandiño speak - but also cited attorney-client privilege as a reason not to explain the content of the legal advice. While Sprenger is technically correct (as evidenced by the fact that the rest of the board did the same thing even though it obviously disgusts them to have to do so), it leaves KF in the position of having been told no and yet not knowing why, which, despite the understandable legality, is an essentially unjust position.

Furthermore, it's an unjust position brought about by the intersection of two board policies - cyberbullying and the complaint procedures - complicated by the fact that LT is an anonymous blogger. I have to admit that so far I'm not happy with how the conflict between the policies has been handled, because I think it's been resolved in such a way as to cause maximum damage to Kim's position - and whether or not that's intentional on the part of district's legal counsel and/or Jim Robinson, it is being perceived as intentional and political. And while Robinson cannot control every perception of his actions (nor should he have to) it would seem in his best interest to reach out a little and do some P.R. on this one.

Robinson pointed out during the meeting (and this is referenced in this Express story) that by allowing Kim to have a hearing, he would risk violating district complaint policy.

It goes as follows: Kim filed her complaint at level three and moved it to level four when she appealed to the board. Robinson pointed out that she skipped levels one and two, both of which require notification and conversation with the person named in the complaint. Robinson then claimed that if Kim were to identify or claim to identify the blogger in her hearing, and the blogger turned out to be a district employee, Kim would have violated complaint procedure, thus causing an injustice to the employee.

Essentially, Robinson is claiming that allowing Kim a hearing regarding her complaint violating district policy would itself be a violation of district policy, and he and/or legal counsel have decided that the potential of violating the possible employee's complaint rights outweighs Kim's rights. Which is fine if one believes that no cyberbullying has occured, and that Kim should take her case to a civil court (which is what Robinson has said on multiple occasions).

HOWEVER, given that so many people - Kim, Debi, Josh, and Rick come to mind, as well as Ginger Allen and, I suspect, lots and lots of teachers - think that what LT has written is "cyberbullying" (it may be mean, but nothing I have read constitutes cyberbullying OR libel in my mind), Robinson and Sprenger's refusals to do anything but state their positions and ruthlessly use hidden legal advice to defend it is a very, very bad idea politically and PR-wise. It's going to cause the dislike and hatred of them to ratchet up another notch, undeserved or not, because the public perception is very clearly that Kim is not getting anything resembling justice out of this.

And if there's anything that matters in a place like Lebanon, it's that (punitive) justice gets done.

One last thing: I imagine that many of the folks involved in this case are not all that familiar with libel law or the difference between a public and private figure contained therein. I also imagine they are not used to having someone criticize their actions. While I understand that it can be very difficult to deal with what feels like a personal attack, what's going on in this district is nothing compared to what happens in larger locales where there is far more public scrutiny of the actions of public figures (which, like it or not, comes with the jobs of school board member and LEA President). At some point, one has to learn to evaluate criticism for any truth it contains, cull that truth and see if it's worth responding to in some fashion, and forget about the rest. Dwelling on what some anonymous blogger says about you is just stress that no one needs, and I say that without a trace of irony.