The announcement that North Elementary’s principal and vice principal have been put on leaves of absence came as a shock.
A letter was sent to the North community last Tuesday, and The Dominion Post received a copy of the letter a couple days later. When our reporter reached out to Mon County Schools Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr., he declined to say more than that there was “an incident” that “remains under investigation.”
We respect that Campbell wishes to protect people’s privacy, and that he would like to do his due diligence in fully investigating whatever “incident” led to the suspensions. However, whenever there is an information vacuum, rumors are quick to fill it.
And already the rumors are swirling.
We’ve heard several, though we won’t contribute to the spread of unconfirmed information by repeating them here.
If there’s one thing social media has taught us in recent years, it’s that if a falsehood is repeated often enough, people will begin to believe it is true.
Already, common themes are cropping up in the conjecture over what the “incident” might be. Those common themes may coalesce into one or two unproven theories that are then discussed again and again. And if a rumor gets repeated over and over, in the absence of verifiable information, it may become accepted by the wider community as the “truth.”
We’ve seen this happen before, particularly when it involves a public entity like local government or police or, as in this case, a school. The community has a vested interest in what happens at, or what actions are done by, such institutions. They are funded by our tax dollars and directly impact our lives. And there’s always an extra level of concern when something has even the slightest chance of impacting children.
While we respect that Monongalia County Schools has a responsibility to protect the identities of the innocent and to fully investigate any accusations of wrongdoing, it also has an obligation to be as transparent as possible with the public.
It would behoove Mon County Schools to release a more detailed official statement — if only about the nature of the “incident” — before rumors take root and supplant the truth.
