PRESS RELEASE REGION 10 SCHOOLS September 10, 2007

From: Beth Duffy, Chairperson of the Region 10 Board of Education

On August 31st U.S. District Judge, Mark Kravitz denied the injunction requested by Avery Doninger and her mother to void the election of senior class secretary at Lewis Mills High School. Until the case documents became public, Region 10 officials and board members were restricted by privacy laws from publicly discussing the case. The press has done a great job of covering Avery's version of the story. However, there has been very little coverage of the district’s side. Now it's time to set the record straight.

Yes, let’s set the record straight. My understanding, based in part from Beth Duffy’s comment at the previous Board of Education meeting is that it is the advice of legal council and the policies of the Board not to discuss issues of pending litigation. The case has been appealed, so litigation is still pending. It appears as if Beth is going against the advice of council and board policy.

On top of that, it is my understanding of case documents have been public for quite a while. I received copies of them back on August 22nd.

Despite what has been reported in the press, Ms. Niehoff and Mrs. Schwartz did not infringe on Avery Doninger’s First Amendment rights.

That is the assertion of that continues to be challenged in court. Duffy, Niehoff, Schwartz and Kravitz seem to believe this assertion. I, and various civil libertarians do not believe it. The real question is will the Second Circuit accept the assertion.

Judge Kravitz ruled that they acted appropriately in rendering Avery ineligible to run for the office of senior class secretary because she deliberately and publicly circulated information that was vulgar, false and incited members of the community to disrupt the central office.

Again, the Board seems to not get the facts straight. Judge Kravitz did not rule that Niehoff and Schwartz acted appropriately. Instead, he ruled that the plaintiff’s did not present sufficient information to warrant proactive injunctive relief. There is a very big difference between the two.

Avery took her action after Ms. Niehoff had addressed the issue of appropriate behavior of class officers with her that same day. Ms. Niehoff then withdrew her support of Avery’s candidacy only after it was clear that Avery did not understand that her conduct was unbecoming a class officer.

Holding the position of class officer at Lewis Mills is not a right - it is a privilege.

This gets to the interesting aspect of where rights and privileges intersect. Driving is a privilege, and that privilege cannot be taken away because someone executed their rights of free speech. If it were, you could run into very dangerous precedents. For example, I suspect Duff, Niehoff, Schwartz and Kravitz would not want to see someone’s privilege of driving taken away because that person wrote in a personal blog somewhere about a traffic cop being an asshole. If they do believe that privileges should be taken away in such contexts then that illustrates what poor regard they view the rights of U.S. Citizens.

The definition of privilege in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is "a right or immunity granted as an advantage or favor esp. to some and not to others". At Lewis Mills, the privilege of running for class office must be earned through good citizenship, and appropriate behavior. Mrs. Doninger has admitted publicly that she believes her daughter's behavior was neither appropriate nor acceptable. That means she agrees with the assessment of her daughter's behavior made by the Region 10 administration! She just disagrees with the consequences imposed by the school district, and that is why this matter was in federal court.

This gets to a fundamental question. Who should punish a child for unacceptable behavior that takes place at home. The American tradition has always been that this is the realm of the parents, and Avery’s mother has handled this appropriately. What is inappropriate is when the reach of the government, including public schools extends into our homes.

I should point out here that Region 10 did not start this lawsuit. It was filed by Avery Doninger, her mother and their lawyer, in spite of numerous attempts by the school district to work out a compromise.

I hope the Board will be forthcoming about its efforts to reach a compromise. I have heard that there have been many efforts to reach a compromise, including a meeting with a judge in Bridgeport. None of these have born any fruit and the description I have heard of Niehoff and Schwartz’ approach has been ‘stonewalling’.

Our administrators have acted and continue to act in a professional, ethical and responsible manner. We have tried to settle this matter on at least two occasions and have been met with unreasonable demands by the Doningers. We will continue to defend the administration as long as necessary.

Citing Constitutional rights as protection for bad behavior does that incredible document a grave disservice.

Yet it is precisely these situation where we honor our Constitution, our founders, and the people that have fought so hard for our basic liberties. I am sure that people during the revolutionary war period would have considered refusing to provide housing to soldiers bad behavior. Yet it was abused, and we now have the third amendment to protect against this. Likewise, using a word like douchebag is a bad behavior, but if we reduce our rights to only when everyone is acting above reproach, then we have very few rights left.

This is an issue of standards. We have high standards for our students in Region 10 - good behavior, strong academic achievement, good sportsmanship and civil behavior to one another. Sometimes students make bad decisions because they are young, inexperienced and impulsive. When that happens, we should attempt to help the student learn from his/her mistake. That was done in this case. When a student repeatedly makes the same bad decision, it is the school's responsibility to impose consequences. That was also done here. But if our school system backed down on a fair and just consequence for bad behavior, then we would be letting down the other 2859 students in our district and our communities as well. Judge Krawitz recognized that in his ruling. We have high standards in Region 10, and I for one am proud we do.

It appears as if these ‘high standards’ are viewed as being higher than respect for the Constitution, or using moments of conflict, no matter how far they go, to find valuable teachable moments.

There are many opportunities at Lewis Mills for an intelligent, passionate, determined young lady like Avery to hone her leadership skills. Class secretary was just one of them. I know that both Ms. Niehoff and Mrs. Schwartz would like nothing better than to find an opportunity for Avery to shine in her senior year. I hope that she opens the door to that opportunity.

She has. She has stood up in court to protest the erosion of our civil rights. This goes far beyond anything she would have been able to do as class secretary. I firmly believe this will carry her much further. Avery clearly is the winner in the larger battle. She has shown more maturity than Niehoff or Schwartz. It is a sad commentary on the Region 10 School System.