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School board suing parents over online petition
Categories: Just For Moms, Just For Dads, Education
Paul MacGregor and his wife Michele are unhappy with the principal of their son's school and have taken their grievances to the Internet. They have created an online petition claiming that Principal Susan Reed of Brooklin Village Public School in Whitby, Ontario, is stubborn and refuses to listen to reasonable input from parents.
The petition details their specific complaints, including Reed's insistence that students be kept waiting on the bus for up to 20 minutes each morning before being allowed into the building, her refusal to allow a traditional send-off for graduating students, and her inclusion of a "beer basket" prize in a school fundraiser.
I'd say the petition has been pretty successful as it has been signed by 131 people who obviously agree with them. But should they be allowed to state their case as if it were fact on the Internet for all to see? The Durham District School Board thinks not and has slapped them with a $100,000 defamation lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, "the implications of the website are that Susan Reed is incompetent, lazy, stubborn, unfair, unreasonable, critical, rude and does not act in the best interests of her students ..."
Reed may indeed be all of those things, but in reading the article and the petition itself, it doesn't appear that the MacGregors at any time took their complaints to the school board. Since they are unable to pay the estimated $60,000 in legal fees to defend themselves in court, they are likely going to be the big losers in a situation that surely could have been handled in a better manner. What do you think? Did they cross the line by putting their complaints on the Internet?
via Groxx.com
The petition details their specific complaints, including Reed's insistence that students be kept waiting on the bus for up to 20 minutes each morning before being allowed into the building, her refusal to allow a traditional send-off for graduating students, and her inclusion of a "beer basket" prize in a school fundraiser.
I'd say the petition has been pretty successful as it has been signed by 131 people who obviously agree with them. But should they be allowed to state their case as if it were fact on the Internet for all to see? The Durham District School Board thinks not and has slapped them with a $100,000 defamation lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, "the implications of the website are that Susan Reed is incompetent, lazy, stubborn, unfair, unreasonable, critical, rude and does not act in the best interests of her students ..."
Reed may indeed be all of those things, but in reading the article and the petition itself, it doesn't appear that the MacGregors at any time took their complaints to the school board. Since they are unable to pay the estimated $60,000 in legal fees to defend themselves in court, they are likely going to be the big losers in a situation that surely could have been handled in a better manner. What do you think? Did they cross the line by putting their complaints on the Internet?
via Groxx.com
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jen 11-12-2007 @ 6:02PM
I do think they crossed the line with the online petition. They definitely should've handled this situation differently. Talked with the school instead. They have no one to blame but themselves.
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Ann Adams 11-12-2007 @ 7:49PM
Just noticed it's a Canadian school and I don't know their libel or defamation laws.
I do know that I've either signed or not signed more petitions than I can count. The latest (I didn't sign) is a recall of our current State Senator. Many of them have been circulated via the internet.
No one has ever threatened a law suit as a result.
Perhaps they know their local school board better than we do.
I wouldn't have done what they did unless I'd gone through channels with no result. However, I didn't see anything in the petition remotely approaching defamation. To the contrary, the top lines states that malicious comments would be voided.
It was a list of grievances, nothing more. Those petitions are common here in the States although around here it's usually the entire school board threatened with recall, not a principal. Sometimes they succeed; sometimes not.
I'd say it was a 1st Amendment issue but it's Canada.
We had a principal like that at the elementary school when the younger girls were in 5th grade. There were no petitions but most of the parents (and the staff), including me, were up in arms. He didn't last the year.
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CLM 11-12-2007 @ 10:40PM
You go through channels first. That way, when you post it on the Internet, you can include the fact that you went through channels as one of your complaints. I would imagine this would help a bit in court.
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BabyLove77 11-13-2007 @ 12:09PM
If the principal is really doing what the petition claims, than how can that be defimation? if those claims are making the principal appear "incompetent, lazy, stubborn, unfair, unreasonable, critical, rude and does not act in the best interests of her students" then maybe her actions should be scrutinized, not the petition. The words "beer" and "school fundraisder" should, under no exception, be used in the same sentence, ever. What was this principal thinking? Teachers have been fired or suspended for less that that.
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Paul MacGregor 11-14-2007 @ 8:18PM
The concerns in the petition were on behalf of other parents/students. They were not all my issues. They were taken to the board. The board would not investigate.
The impetus for the petition was the unfair use of police to issue trespass notices. Now the issue is whether principals/public servants can use our tax dollars to stifle petitions.
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Paul MacGregor 11-14-2007 @ 8:33PM
The following email was sent to Supt. Joe Hircock prior immediately upon receiving the cease and desist letter on Oct. 12. He declined the offer.
Dear Mr. Hircock,
I received your letter today demanding that I "remove all existing content from the website address" of my petition. Are you asking for the removal of the petition or just the defamatory content? I would be pleased to remove any defamatory remarks in the petition. Could you please identify the content you are referring to ?
Do you have any intention to investigate the claims in the petition by contacting the people involved as I provided you in my previous email?
Paul MacGregor
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M83T 11-20-2007 @ 11:04PM
I'd just like to comment that there aren't 131 signatures, if you go through the petition there are a lot of repeats and voided lines. You may find about 90 signatures. Though a lot of those signatures aren't student, staff or teachers "who have lost confidence in Susan Reed to act in the best interests of students." as the petition states. A good portion of them are general public members that are against the lawsuit and didn't even have enough interest to look into the situation before signing, they just saw what some of them say was a big bad corporation suing the little guy for standing up for what he believes in.
Before this news has spread the internet and hit the newspapers I believe there was only 28 signatures, a lot from family members of people involved in a situation surrounding the petition or students.
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Cathy Murphy 11-19-2007 @ 5:09PM
As a member of the community involved in this dispute, and a parent with 2 children in this school,I can tell you that there is much more to this story then is being represented by Mr.Paul MacGregor.He didn't innocently walk into his child's school and ask a question and find himself being told to leave.He was rude and demanding and belligerent.He entered a classroom without authorization and tried to get students to leave with him.He refused to leave when it was time for the bell to ring and his disruptive behaviour was going to affect the exiting of the children out of the school on the last day.As I have stated before. if Mr.MacGregor was so confident in his case, he would tell the whole story.
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Paul MacGregor 11-28-2007 @ 8:18PM
Cathy, These are serious charges. Please state your sources for your claims against me otherwise retract it. You are welcome to come to my house for tea and read the DDSB statement of claim for yourself if you would like to speak on the subject intelligently.
Cathy Murphy 11-28-2007 @ 11:29PM
Paul, I have asked you straightout plain and simple at least 4 times to explain your actions in walking into the classroom that day, or to deny openly that you did it. When it comes to questioning someones intelligence, you can not seem to understand the simpliest of questions. You chose to blatantly and rudely ignore my question, and tried to distract me with other issues. I in turn answered your question about those other issues and again asked you to explain your actions. You have chosen to not address what is openly and commonly known to be true, which can only lead people to believe it.
I ask you again, did you or did you not walk into a classroom, address children without authorization, and try to get them to leave with you, as you posted yourself on your discussion board. If your position is that it did not happen, just say so.
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Cathy Murphy 11-29-2007 @ 10:41AM
Due to a threat of a defamation law suit, I feel that it is necessary to state that any information I have posted here are the facts in this case as I believe them to be true. I have come to the conclusion that they are true for two reasons. This information is widely known in the community in which I live and where it took place and I have been told the same story by many many people. I also asked Mr.Macgregor on several occasions to either confirm or deny whether or not the incident took place as I have been told and as he posted on his site, and he refused to do either. This lead me to believe that it did in fact take place as I had been told. My purpose in posting the information is not to defame Mr.Macgregor. It is just important that as people form opinions, and possibily make public shows of support, that they have all the facts and can make an informed decision. There are always 2 sides to every story and it is human nature to represent your side in a dispute, which is all Mr.Macgregor has done, and I don't blame him for that and it is his right. However, it is important that others realize it is never as simple as just one persons perspective.
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