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Al Cashion: School board woes

To the editor:

The School Board meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday night at Ridgeview Elementary.

Once again, I will be in attendance and take my allotted five minutes during the public comment time. Hopefully, we will not see the time wasted through parliamentary shenanigans attempting to block my speech again. Four attempts in one meeting is enough, me thinks.



The subject, again, is the irresponsible and unjust firing of the former high school football staff.

The decision to fire a coach, any coach, is well within the purview and power of the administration. Coaches are “at will” employees and no reason is required. The administration is acting completely within the boundaries of its authority to do so. No argument here.



The termination of Kip Hafey, Lance Scranton and the rest of the coaching staff cannot be argued on its face.

What can be argued is the willful and intentional defamation of character that allowed this entire community to think that the coaching staff was a part of hazing.

In these days of political correctness run amock, a minor can make wild accusations against a teacher or other authority figure, who then becomes guilty in the eyes of many until proven innocent. This is especially so when a premature publishing by the Craig Daily Press made it quite clear by implication that these coaches had committed an atrocity of vast proportions on our innocent children. Because of the lust of salacious gossip, they will remain guilty to some, even after having been exonerated. Many of us have experience the painful results of false accusations. Remember that?

One would suppose that upon the conclusion of the investigation by the Evanston, Wyoming, district attorney, the administration and board would have been happy to say that these coaches were innocent and no charges were to be filed.

One would suppose that it was good news and good news indeed for the reputation of the entire district.

But, one would never know that by the lack of reaction by the powers that be. If a public word was spoken by board or administration on behalf of these good men who had coached our kids for 16 years without a single mark on their record … I missed it. “No comment” is not exactly a pat on the back with a, “We appreciate these coaches and their long service to our students. I’m glad the investigation demonstrated what we always knew.”

Would that have hurt that bad?

Of course, if there were plans looking for an excuse? I hope not. What a horribly destructive excuse. Surely no one is so vile as to cause such pain to good men and their families. Surely.

I would challenge the board and administration to comment publicly in response to my statements at the monthly school board meeting tomorrow night. This body needs to publicly defend or change some issues brought at last month’s meeting. There were a number of policy violations that occurred that have not been addressed. Maybe they will tomorrow night. I also would challenge the Craig Daily Press to be more investigative in its reporting.

Al Cashion

Craig


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