Speculation is palpable regarding the executive
session meeting being held tonight by the Southbridge school committee
regarding the future of Superintendent Eric Ely who has been put on administrative
leave regarding a charge of misconduct.
Reporting on rumors is a very tricky business as one
of my blogger colleagues noted in August.
Nevertheless there are competing strains which boil
down to two recurring themes.
First, the allegation of misconduct apparently
relates to supposed electronic communications from the Superintendent to a
female, purportedly a teacher, which would amount to sexual harassment. I have
been accused in unpublished comments of having copies of such communications
and withholding them. This is not true, and even if I did have them I would
require substantial verification of their authenticity before making them
public. As such this can be regarded as nothing more than a rumor.
Second is an allegation, which the same
blogger cleverly characterized in a post today, that the Superintendent was
“set up” by a conspiracy among his detractors.
I have received numerous comments relating to these
competing rumors, none of which I have published. In my opinion they cross the
line into being potentially libelous.
What I did do was to turn the content of several of
these comments over to Mr. Ely, along with the header information I received
that may indicate their source. I did indicate to him that I was in no position
to pass judgment on his guilt or innocence. Rather, if he was innocent of the
allegations, then his attorney should have access to information of a
potentially criminal conspiracy that might exculpate Mr. Ely.
I subsequently learned that an email alleging the
conspiracy that was identical to the one I had received had been sent to all
school committee members as well as to Mr. Ely. This would seem to be the basis
of my colleague’s “parable” earlier today.
Whether any of these rumors are true is open to
investigation and certainly to being totally repudiated. Whatever the case, they are further evidence
of the Byzantine political environment in which we are immersed.
Whatever differences may exist between me and other
commentators, I hope that we share the objective of finding the truth.
I see that the petition to have the state take over our schools has finally gotten over 100 signatures. Never mind that they had to get people from Brookfield, Lynn and even Pennsylvania to sign it.
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