ASD superintendent Carol Comeau recently dealt with a prank at Service High School where many students had ruined the exterior door locks with glue and tried to erect concrete barriers to the driveways. While there are many different ‘takes’ on the proper ASD response to this, I was immediately encouraged by some of Carol Comeau’s first words on this subject: “We need to teach young people that there are consequences to their actions”.

My encouragement turned into discouragement when I shared my thoughts with a parent from Eagle River, who told me a fairly long and unhappy tale of his recent dealings with Ms. Comeau. His account made me wonder about Ms. Comeau’s ethics, straightforwardness, and just plain honesty. When I questioned him about these things, he shared with me a long email exchange between he and Ms. Comeau, dragging out what seemed to be a straightforward question into many weeks of misdirection, conflicting assertions, and just plain subterfuge within ASD’s communications in response to this parent.

After going round and round without any response from ASD that might indicate that they might feel that “there are consequences to … actions”, Ms. Comeau declined to participate any further in the discussion – never once having given this parent a straightforward answer that didn’t conflict directly with another official ASD answer to the same question… and refusing to discuss the gross discrepancies of the ASD answers.

While it is important to ‘talk the talk’ – which by the way, Ms. Comeau does seem to be able to do quite well – it is extremely important to ‘walk the walk’ as well. How can Ms. Comeau justify saying the “right” words, and then when questioned further – and the going got rough for her to continue to deny ASD-intentional-guilt – to merely stop the conversation?

Should ASD only conduct conversations with parents that make ASD look good, and not participate in any other discussions? That seems outrageous.

We must be a better example to our youth. Our children care and learn less about our words than they do about our actions. When these two things conflict it is always our actions that carry more weight. Ms. Comeau’s actions in this instance do not appear honorable.

Does anyone else have experiences dealing directly with Ms. Comeau – whether their account might involve the telling of difficult truths, or similar to this case where difficult truths are hidden, questioners misdirected, and discussions refused when they became too close to a difficult truth?

P.S. The simple straightforward question that the Eagle River parent was trying to get an answer to was merely this:
“Is ASD intentionally violating the law that requires them to hire ‘Highly Qualified’ teachers?”