I was thinking about Trump intervening after the conviction of the Navy SEAL.
Here’s a story. It ‘s not the same as Trump and the Navy SEAL. Is there is a resemblance.?
I was a school superintendent in a little school district with four elementary schools. Did I ever intervene in a lower level decision?
One Wednesday afternoon, the cops showed up at one of the schools and arrested a teacher. If they were planning to humiliate the guy, they chose the wrong day. There were no kids at school. We had a short day on Wednesdays. Wednesday afternoons were for professional development.
The teacher was arrested for having sex with adolescent boys. A single man, he took in adolescent boys as foster children. It was those boys he was accused of molesting.
No email in those days. We typed letters to every parent in the school. Sent a brief note telling them of the arrest, the accusation, and that the teacher would not be returning to his classroom while this accusation was unresolved. We brought the letters to the post office. Then I telephoned the school committee chair.
That might not have been the right order. What seemed most important was to get the notes to parents in the next morning’s mail before they read the local afternoon newspaper that afternoon. So I thought.
Maybe I also wanted to control what happened rather than the school board.
Tomorrow: And what happened.