Sunday blog: In defense of the Wellington school administration
Commentary by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — One of the more unfortunate consequences of these insane school shootings occurring randomly across this nation is it has paralyzed us with fear.
The threat of a school shooting looms, although statistically rare. Despite the bushels of money, we throw at a potential tragedy that is likely not to occur, it is not enough to qualm this looming dread.
Wellington school administrators dealt with these fears firsthand 10 days ago.
The administration has taken considerable heat for a story that was published in Sumner Newscow and the sequence of the disseminating information concerning a rumor being spread of a potential shooting at the Wellington Middle School.
It proved to be an unsubstantiated rumor in which a middle school student texted a friend that he/she would not go to school “because they heard rumors that someone was going to shoot.”
It turned out to be nothing – an unsubstantiated rumor made by a kid who was just being a kid. I foresee this becoming an ongoing problem, much like bomb threats in the 1990s. The Wichita and Topeka school districts dealt with the same thing last week.
Newscow received the story via e-mail early morning, not much after the rumor surfaced, and a text alert came later. Many parents were upset that they weren’t contacted before it became a news story.
I’m not sure how many phone calls the school administration took that morning after the story broke, but there was plenty of social media outrage. So much so that Wellington Superintendent Adam Hatfield issued an apology the next day, saying the administration had “made some communication errors.” See story here.
While I understand the rancor of those parents, I’m going to come in defense of the school administration.
When I read the comments from the general public on Facebook, the common theme was it should have come via “text alerts” that the school periodically sends out for scheduled events and rescheduling.
Mmmm. I’m not so sure about that.
To inform the public with a short one-sentence text on a mobile phone, if not handled perfectly, could have resulted in a panic. You have to provide context.
Had I been in charge, I may have used a combination of the two. I would have sent the text with an accompanying link to an article explaining the situation. I would have made sure a full-fledged article was immediately provided, and it would be distributed via local media and social media outlets first.
Because in that situation, the greatest thing the administration could have done was to ensure everyone knew as soon as possible that the children were not in danger.
Could it have been done with a one-sentence text alert? No way. That would have created way too many questions.
You couldn’t pay me enough to be a school administrator these days. Three years ago, it was state mandated curriculum, In 2020, it was pandemic and how to handle remote learning. Last year, it was mask mandates. Now we worry about school shootings. That’s not to mention the everyday barrage of individual incidents involving students, teachers, and well-intentioned (or over-reactionary if you are a cynic) parents.
Returning to the Sept. 8 incident, we can quibble about the lengthy wait between the article and the texts and how the parents learned of the incident. But it is a judgment call, and if it is a judgment call, there are no right or wrong answers.
I learned a long time ago in this media business that when breaking news strikes, it is best to defer to authorities. There will always be time to know the name of the victim or the details of a particular incident.
My goal as a media member is to inform and not become part of the story. I’m sure every person in authority — whether it be law enforcement or the school administration — feels the same way.
Inevitably, people will point fingers when something unsettling strikes. It is human nature.
But on this one, I have no problem with what the Wellington school administration did. I would like to thank the administration for taking the quick, decisive action of making sure our children were safe and for making an effort to inform the public of what exactly happened. I have always maintained that transparency is the best policy and the school administration did just that.
In the meantime, perhaps we, the public, can find that equilibrium of well-applied concern and not let fear rule the day.
