GENERALLY SPEAKING MICHAEL E. HANKE
You shouldn’t elect a person to office who won’t tell you what is going on. Elected officials represent you, the voter, and not themselves, and certainly not the staffs of whatever office they hold. The officeholders who most often forget who they work for are school board members. We saw this last week in Perry Local School District.
Two popular Perry High School wrestling coaches were suspended last week by Superintendent John Richard. Richard apparently didn’t tell anyone why, so rumors started. Pressed to tell the public ” the people who elected him ” what was going on, Perry Local Board of Education President Doug Edwards referred inquiries to Richard, who conveniently was unavailable for comment.
Meanwhile, Police Chief Tim Escola, a person who knows that taxpayers have a right to know, said his department received a complaint last summer about Head Coach Brian Dolph concerning a Las Vegas trip involving Dolph and some wrestlers at a nonschool event. Dolph resigned from his job last week. The school board still has not told Perry Local residents why.
Escola also said his department is investigating allegations that Riggs misused wrestling booster club funds. Residents might presume that the allegations came from the school district, but they wouldn’t know that either because of the mum school board president.
Somewhat in defense of school boards, they have the fear of God instilled in them by their attorneys. Mary Jo Shannon Slick, an attorney with Stark County schools, said: “We’re not going to discuss personnel issues in the public.” Notice the use of the word “we.” That means she has advised the superintendent and apparently the school board to clam up. Of course, they can talk if they want, but school officials fear their own shadows because their attorneys tell them to.
Last time I looked, the First Amendment to the Constitution protects speech. It should be used to tell people what is going on. The superintendent, presumably with counsel from the school board, suspended two popular coaches for reasons he believes to be correct. The school board has an obligation to tell the district’s constituents what those reasons are. This is the public’s business, not simply a “personnel issue.”
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