I’m sorry but that Glass photo story has me in a bit of a lather. Talk about image vs. substance.
I don’t know what the parents of the east choir students were thinking but I couldn’t help but recall that one of Gary Glass’s opponents on the School Board has a degree in music education and two daughters at East High. Maybe they sing too. I’d sure hate to think that Gary’s innocent picture taking was used to make Glass look bad with the DNT a useful foil to broadcast the nonsense. I have had similar experiences most recently in connection with my fight against the Red Plan. Certainly Gary’s other antagonist on the Board Chairman Tim Grover did nothing in the story to throw cold water on the parents suspicions – if they were real suspicions.
The previous post makes it clear that I also took a picture of the Choraliers while I was a sitting school board member. In my case I was also the father of one of the choir members. I’m quite aware that parents have a duty to be vigilant about their children and the adults whose care they are entrusted to.
The year before my daughter joined the Choraliers an event of seismic proportions hit the choir. Its charismatic director, Eric Holtan, was convicted of having sex with some of his female choir members. In looking for some Internet reference to this awful story I was surprised to learn that Mr. Holtan now denies that anything happened. Apparently he was recently nominated for an award in Tuscon, Arizona, the state where he served out his conviction, as one of the city’s top 40 new up and comers.
Mr. Holtan was convicted for taking more than just pictures of his students in Duluth. A year after his departure my daughter joined his old choir and I was the one taking pictures. His recent lionizing and unmasking brought to mind today’s front page Trib story about local civic awards.
Like a retired CIA employee my service as school board member has left me with a legacy of anecdotes which I am unable to fully disclose lest I violate legal restraints placed on me during my term on the School board. Sometimes there is more to a story if only one digs deep as the Arizona blogger did.
A week or two ago I read the names of a number of Duluth teachers whose teaching skills were being justifiably lauded. Among them was one who had come to the School board’s attention for having solicited false testimony from another teacher to protect a student – suborning perjury.
The student in question had been sexually aggrandizing fellow students [talk about being vague] in one of our schools. The false testimony would have cleared the student. Our Board debated the merits of firing the subborning teacher but decided against it. (I can’t remember how I voted in the closed meeting) Perhaps the recognition now being bestowed upon this teacher justifies our decision. In any event, this teacher was not guilty of sexual aggrandizement. That had been the work of the student the teacher had tried to shield.
As for the student. . . a former board member mentioned to me that shortly after the student was expelled the offending student’s picture was published in a local paper. In the photo the aggrandizer’s arms were wrapped around the shoulders of new students that he/she was touring about school – the school he/she had transferred to after the expulsion.
