To the Editor:

Elie Wiesel said, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” This is true whether we are fighting injustice that harms the world or fighting an injustice that harms a child for whom we care.

This letter is addressed to all stakeholders of the Morristown CSD. The members of your MCS Board decided, at their 5/16 meeting, to allow the administration to wield their power unfairly over a select group of students.

They were presented with evidence which offered School Law requirements the District did not meet and the presence of situational circumstances, but they still chose to back the Administration in taking away the opportunity for these seniors to go on the class trip, after spending months raising money AND after serving a punishment for their “crime.”

This isn’t about freeing adolescents from personal accountability, but rather the hypocrisy of the Board to hold certain students more accountable for their rule breaking than they hold themselves and punishing these students again. There is no reasonable justification a Board of Education can offer its school community for having a Code of Conduct which does not adhere to NYSED requirements, yet holds its students, somehow, accountable for their misdeeds using this inadequately prepared, required Code.

In every district, stakeholders are supposed to be provided this document, by NYSED law, so they are aware of expectations placed upon them, not just students. In an educational setting, the Code of Conduct is THE document to protect our students.

Anyone who chooses to be an “essential partner” in the education domain must see fit to use common sense, to educate themselves on School law, and to protect all students equally from biased decisions.

So to those who call Morristown home, I urge you to ask more of your elected Board members, to hold them accountable to School law, and to hold themselves to the higher standard to proactively protect all our community’s children.

An ethical Board would never allow itself to operate under these circumstances, especially one that ignores State Law. The next time you encounter Larry Kring III, Darrell Merkel, Junior Aldrich, Mark Blanchard, David Young, Andrea Bertrand, or Lisa Newby, remind them of their sworn duty to offer all students a valid chance to succeed, not to selectively place obstacles in their paths.

Mary Bailey

Morristown