Dr. William Clark

Superintendent’s Blog

April 2008

Confidentiality

              Several times during the course of the school year, incidents occur within the walls of the school that involve students, teachers, staff, and /or other employees of the district.  At times these situations involve either the behavior of individuals or situations that individuals are placed in that would lead to the involvement of rumors or misinformation.  Some of these situations dealing with student behavior, teacher behavior or employee behavior can lead to concerns on behalf of people within the community, students or other employees.  Due to confidentiality, the district cannot release information about these situations. 

Even when phone calls have been made to the district regarding student behavior, the response from the administration will typically be “we are addressing the issue at hand”, or “the situation is being reviewed and handled properly by the district”.  We cannot give out details regarding the situations due to the confidentiality of the student being a minor or a person being an employee of the district.  At times, individuals who are calling the district are upset with the responses given by the administration in these particular situations because of the feeling we are being deceitful or hiding information.  The goal of the district is not to hide information, but to protect the integrity of the individual who may be involved in the situation.  The district’s approach has always been that there are two sides to every story.  We try to gather information around each side of that story and make a determination on how to move forward in the best interest of all parties involved. 

Incidents may be things at the school such as student fights, the drug dogs coming in for a random search on behalf of the district, or a variety of other situations that occur in the schools during any given school year.  The district must be very cautious in releasing information to the public regarding anything that transpires on school grounds.  At times, this requirement of shielding information from the public looks like the district is not doing anything.  I want to assure individuals in the community that the district does address the concerns of the community when we are confronted with those concerns.  If you have an issue with information that is being discussed within the community, feel free to call the district administration of the building that you may think is the source of that information and let that administrator know you have concerns.  You will then hear that either it is already being addressed or if they are not already aware of a situation that it will be addressed. 

Please at any point in time call the district office (742-7614) and ask for Dr. William Clark with concerns that you may have regarding the information that is being heard through the rumor mill, text messages, emails, or any other source.  This will give us an opportunity to let you know how the district is reacting to the information.