What part of communication do folks not get?
One would think, based on the lack of communication that fueled the fire around the pool cue rape of an Ooltewah High School basketball player in December 2015 and led to the resignation of Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Rick Smith a year ago, that other school and government officials might have taken a hint.
Apparently, they haven't.
* Example 1: It took media inquiries for the spokeswoman for the Hamilton County Department of Education to release the name of one teacher suspended from Howard School for allegedly failing to report child abuse. That teacher, band director Dexter Bell, had had previous run-ins with school and central office administration. However, one other teacher, Amelia James, and a school counselor, Jenny Smith, also had been suspended, and it took additional media inquiries to pry that out of the department spokeswoman.
Fortunately, unlike with the Ooltewah situation, the Howard principal apparently had taken immediate action upon learning of the problem, and, again, unlike with Ooltewah, some school board members were informed of the situation.
Howard faculty members may have been acting out of care and concern for the child abuse victim, but it should have been incumbent upon the district spokeswoman - with backing with central office administrators - to have been up front about the suspensions. Transparency stops rumors and allows parents, students and the public to have confidence in school leaders.
* Example 2: The contract of the LaFayette High School principal has not been renewed, but the superintendent of Walker County (Ga.) Schools says he is not allowed to explain why it was not renewed due to privacy involving personnel decisions.
Principal Mike Culberson, who has been in the position since 2010 and maintained he has had strong performance reviews, said, "I don't know why they're doing this."
The school board voted 4-0 not to renew Culberson's contract Monday night. Superintendent Damon Raines said the principal will remain at the school for the rest of the year. Raines also told a crowd at the school board meeting he could not allow public comment on the issue because of a pending federal lawsuit appeal. That lawsuit grew out of a board policy that public comment was not allowed unless the person first met with Raines.
Students, some of whom walked out of school in protest Monday, parents and the public are left to wonder about the secrecy. School employees said they weren't told anything during school hours, a statement was read to faculty after school saying there was no personnel change, and Raines later said no decision was made until the school board vote.
Clearly, the board and superintendent are obfuscating, and that only creates a toxic situation that will hang over the school for the rest of the year unless the truth comes out.
* Example 3: A long-standing tiff between Bradley County Sheriff Eric Watson and County Commissioner Daniel Rawls has broken open, with the sheriff accusing the commissioner of being involved in a 1977 Florida murder and the commissioner denying it and demanding an apology.
Rawls had pushed for a now ongoing state probe of activities in the sheriff's office and most recently spoke in a police report for a sheriff's office employee who didn't want to be named in an incident at the Bradley County Justice Center allegedly involving Watson and his wife.
Watson, who claimed Rawls is out to get him, said the commissioner "ran into some problems in Florida" and "left Florida with some issues" following a robbery-murder in which one man was convicted and a Daniel Rawls was granted immunity and testified against the other man.
Rawls, who is white, said he is not that Daniel Rawls, who is black. He also provided a letter from District Attorney General Steve Crump, who, in responding to an inquiry about the Florida incident, said his office found "no evidence exists of the conviction [that was] alleged."
Did the problems between those two men need to crumble into allegations-hurling, back-and-forth articles in a Cleveland newspaper? Could they have sat down to work out their differences before a state probe was begun? Can they work together now for the best interests of the county?
In all three situations, more honesty and transparency in the first place from officials given the task of speaking for school systems, running a school district and helping govern a county would have headed off misery in the second place. What are always left behind in these instances are students, parents and a public who now have just a little less confidence in authority, in the necessity for the truth and in the importance of good governance.