Several months ago, a party was held and some Ft. Edward high school students apparently attended and drank alcohol, something which is, of course, illegal. At least one of them was reportedly an athlete, which is a violation of the school's code of conduct that all athletes sign in order to participate in sports. Some genius took pictures at the party and posted them on the Internet site webshots.com. Someone saw the photos and reported them to the school.
What followed was fairly predictable: head-in-the-sand denials, obfuscation, demands for perpetrators to be stoned, self-righteous condemnations by the newspaper, defensive villagers circling the wagons against the newspaper, an administration eventually embarassed into doing the right thing, no one's honor left intact.
The school tried to ignore the photos. They claimed that they didn't know if the photos were doctored. They claimed that without knowing when the party was held, they couldn't know if it was before or after the athletes had signed the code of conduct and therefore couldn't act. They insisted that they'd acted on reports of alcohol use by students in the past, but after it was referred to them by the police.
Some parents complained about this. They contended that the district was engaged in a coverup. They claimed that some students are held to different standards than others with regard to the code of conduct. Did I mention that the one of the students identified was the star player for the school's state-ranked basketball team AND the son of the district's superintendent?
Four days before the basketball team was to participate in the state semifinal, a story appeared in the local daily Post-Star on the topic (along with the usual self-righteous editorial).
The timing was extremely fishy.
The complaining parents contended that they'd spent three months trying to get the school board to act on the photos. Yet if the parents had the photos for months, why did they wait for a few days before the big game to go to the newspaper? If they were so concerned about 'impunity' and 'double standards' by the school board, why didn't they just take the photos directly to the police (since underage drinking is a violation of the law, not just the athletic code of conduct)? Simply put, why did they wait so long to go public if they thought the administration was stonewalling? It makes you wonder if someone had an axe to grind with the superintendent and decide to use his son for that purpose.
Not surprisingly, many residents of the town circled the wagons and got very defensive. Why was the big bad newspaper picking on the poor, innocent town? Of course, the paper wasn't picking on the town, they were criticizing the (in)action of the school board and superintendent. But it's easier to blame the media than to blame your neighbors.
Not that the paper is blameless either. They've written a front page article on the topic almost every day for the last week and a half, even when there was hardly anything new to report. They insisted (hand over heart) that their reporting on the issue was not about the 'politics of personal destruction.' While this may not have been their intention, it's not hard to see how this could be misconstrued... even by those not looking for things to misconstrue.
Every single story on the topic (except today's, for some reason) contained some version of the sentence: "One of the students in the photos has been identified by The Post-Star's sports department as [kid's name], the star and leading scorer for Ft. Edward's basketball team."
That kid was the only student identified either explicitly or even implicitly by the paper.
When you combine that with the fact that this sentence was included in EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE ON THE TOPIC FOR THE LAST WEEK AND A HALF, it makes you wonder: why are they ramming this kid's name down people's throats? A mention in the first article would've sufficed, since who he is (or who his father is) is relevant to the story. But by now, it's overkill, it's sensationalism. After you've told people six times in a week and a half that one of the kids was so-and-so, is a seventh mention really necessary? Is it any wonder people question the paper's motives for beating this dead horse?
I've already explained several times why the paper's hysterical Crusade against teen drinking is more dangerous than helpful, since it fuels binge drinking, instead of more responsible consumption. Thank goodness those who developed the 'designated driver' concept weren't such ostriches. Particularly galling is the emotional blackmail they employ to hide their pathological refusal to distinguish between three distinct phenomena: teen drinking, binge drinking and drunk driving.
But whether teen drinking should be legal and monitored instead of hidden in the woods isn't the issue at hand. The athletes voluntarily signed the code of conduct in order to participate in sports. They chose to sign a de facto contract and they apparently broke the contract. If you want to get plastered or high all the time, don't play sports. It's that simple. It's dangerous to yourself and disrespectful to your teammates. It would be completely appropriate that they be suspended from their sport in accordance with the terms of the contract they signed. In fact, it would be wrong if they weren't.
The superintendent didn't distinguish himself any more than anyone else. As a father, he probably wanted to protect his kid (and his own image), both of which are understandable to some extent. But as a superintendent, he has a broader responsibility. He could've urged the board to look into things and then recused himself from the rest of the process.
It's true that the mob want this kid tarred and feathered. The superintendent would've been right to say, "Hold on, let's take a deep breath, investigate and let due process take its course." He would've been right to do this regardless of who the kid was. But he didn't do that. He buried his head in the sand, refused to look at the pictures and hoped that situation would simply go away. He could've done the right thing but he didn't... at least not until the negative publicity generated by the newspaper embarassed him and the rest of the board into doing so. But not after serious damage to his and the district's reputation.
I'm not surprised that some villagers view it as a witch hunt, since that's tone the newspaper uses in all of its reporting and editorials on the topic. And the newspaper has a reputation for being smug in general. When you wag your finger and lecture people like insolent children, it's not surprising when they get a bit defensive. But it really much simpler than that. If the board refuses to enforce the code of conduct, they are admitting that the code is meaningless. That's not a good lesson. Or, they could be admitting that you get different treatment if you're a star athlete or the child of a powerful person or if you're on a team that's doing really well. That's an even worse lesson to teach the kids.
Ft. Edward's school board and superintendent can talk all it wants about honesty, integrity and respect for the rules. But it would be hard to take them seriously now that those adults in positions of leadership have shown such a sad lack of all three qualities.
You have some kids doing stupid things, a school board and superintendent engaging in a coverup, some parents with an axe to grind and a newspaper demanding burnings at the stake. Sadly, no one comes out of this debacle with any credit.
Update: An interesting addendum to the daily's Crusade against teen drinking/binge drinking/drunk driving (which The Post-Star and their managing editor Ken Tingley disingenuously pass off as three of the same thing). In his column on Sunday March 26, Tingley recounted the time back in his younger days when he drove while intoxicated. Strangely enough, he was 21 and thus would've been drinking legally. (In fact, the drinking age at the time may have been 18 which meant he would've been drinking legally for several years). Maybe Tingley's episode demonstrates that the real problem isn't a teenager having a beer or two. Maybe the real problems are binge drinking and drunk driving... REGARDLESS of the age of the person doing it.
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