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 "The University must be transparent and open with the students who attend this University, especially pertaining to some of the most important figures who are tasked with keeping us safe."
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Something seems amiss at Norfolk’s Bay View Elementary. Administrators now say they did not correctly handle reports that a teacher abused at least two students, allowing her to remain in the classroom for a year after receiving the initial complaint. Too often, public officials hide behind the myriad exemptions poked into the commonwealth’s Freedom of Information Act. Norfolk school officials should have adopted a transparent posture once they learned of allegations about the teacher. Instead, they are facing investigations and furious parents. These heinous problems were mishandled. But also alarming are the ways in which the school kept parents in the dark. Had these incidents been handled strictly within the school’s domain, the public may never have learned a potentially abusive teacher was working with students. So how many more instances of such abuse have taken place in Hampton Roads? The public may never know since the commonwealth allows schools, cities and other governmental agencies to hide employees’ bad behavior behind exemptions built into the Freedom of Information Act. Virginians have a right to know what is happening in the name of “public service,” making transparency the only clear measure in which determine how the commonwealth is performing.
The Virginian-Pilot
Over the past two months, Police Chief Tommye S. Sutton and Gloria Graham, the Associate Vice President for Safety and Security, both resigned from their positions here at the University. Sutton was placed on paid-leave in mid-September and formally resigned about a week later. The University subsequently announced his resignation, providing no further information and instead highlighted the new interim police chief in a press release. In late October, the University issued a similar press release regarding Graham’s resignation. They announced that her resignation would go into effect in November and continued to focus on her interim replacement. In both situations the University brushed over the resignation as if it were unimportant. However, these people are responsible for the safety of the students and the larger University community, so any changes to these posts affects everyone who attends, works and even visits the University. As students, we should be upset that we were given almost no information as to why Sutton and Graham left their positions. The University must be transparent and open with the students who attend this University, especially pertaining to some of the most important figures who are tasked with keeping us safe.
Hunter Hess, The Cavalier Daily
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