Dear editor,
Re: Incident investigated at Comox school, June 28 Record.
Neither my husband nor I could believe that your newspaper would consider this item to be newsworthy.
This relatively minor incident should have been left to the school and parents to deal with.
We are sure that the boy who had this accident didn’t need any more attention drawn to him and that he was, and probably still is, feeling a lot of shame and embarrassment. He’ll never forget that day and his heart must have sunk when he learned that it was made known to the public. What were you thinking? We also doubt that his parents appreciated the attention either.
Even though the names of the boy and his family were not published, news has a way of getting around.
While it appears that an angry vice-principal was hell-bent on some kind of revenge and may have taken inappropriate action, that doesn’t seem to us to be newsworthy either. This is something for the school and parents to deal with, and not made into a public spectacle.
It was small-minded of your newspaper to publish anything about this incident. We can see that, if the vice-principal had been disciplined or dismissed as a result of her action, that may have been news but written without details about what actually happened. I’m sure that some wordsmith in your employ could have figured out how to handle this story discreetly.
Cathy and Brian Storey
Courtenay