Reply to GDS Student Newspaper posts about the horrible incident

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Well, clearly GDS wants to avoid any liability so it’s clear why are doing that . [/quote]
If GDS really wanted to avoid liability, they would have expelled the students who present a real harm to other students. There's no reason for GDS to keep students who so violently assaulted another child. Even assuming that the alleged perpetrators are "connected" or have parents who are significant donors, the threat of future harm, especially knowing that the students have a record of assault, is so great that the risk to the school's reputation and the cost of a lawsuit would outweigh the benefits of keeping those students at GDS. (Not to mention GDS has enough wealthy and connected families that losing one or two would not be terribly detrimental to the school.) Security at the school is tight. No one enters without passing through two sets of doors and security (at least one of whom is recently retired MPD) at the front desk. The design of the grade-level floors is such that bathrooms are not hidden in some corridor; they are right off the hallway and surrounded by classrooms. People would see you enter and leave the bathroom. Perhaps the alleged student perpetrators were eventually counseled out. Who knows? But without sufficient evidence, the school is limited in its public response.
I feel horrible for the family and the distress that they are feeling. I am sure that something awful happened to their child, but it's not clear exactly what based upon the available corroborating evidence.
As for Russell, he's been a great HOS. Yes, there are some things that he could have handled differently, but none of the events that people like to bring up was "easy" (COVID, Oct. 7) and *any* response to those events would have been sure to piss off one contingent of the GDS regardless.[/quote]

What if it didn't actually happen? How would you feel if your kid was expelled and accused of something horrific, but it turned out not to be true? Presumably, the accused have not done anything to cause problems since the alleged incident, so they have not presented a real harm to other students.

I'm not saying that it did or did not happen, but any sweeping action that assumes that the account is correct directly impacts those accused.  While I believe people who have been exposed to trauma, I also believe that those who are accused of a crime have the right to be assumed innocent without evidence proving otherwise.  It doesn't make it right or easy but it is our system.  And no, I don't think that the threshold for a school to take action should be so low that they expel students without compelling evidence of guilt.[/quote]
To be clear, I'm not saying that the school should have expelled the students without sufficient evidence. I'm saying that if the school did have evidence, the school would have expelled the students. As for the family's request to warn other GDS families, the question remains as to why. Is the family concerned that the alleged perpetrators are still at the school? What would warning GDS families accomplish exactly? What should kids be on alert for that is so unique to GDS that warrants a special warning about assault in the bathroom?[/quote]

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