UPDATE (11/4/11): The Lister arrest story gets uglier: Turns out he had a prior criminal record but got hired anyway. Also, more details have come out in court regarding the custodian’s arrest related to the Wellesley Middle School thefts, including his claim to police that he found the Apple gear in a dumpster.
UPDATE (10/28/11): Seems Wellesley Middle School principal’s original statement to be delivered to students Friday morning didn’t fly with all parents, so he got some help editing it, and here’s the New & Improved! version:
As you know we have been experiencing a series of thefts in the building over the last several months that have left us all concerned about the safety of our belongings. On Wednesday afternoon an individual who has been working as a night custodian was taken into custody at his home and charged with these crimes. The Wellesley Police Department have recovered some of the items and are continuing their investigation. The court has ordered this person not be allowed on school property. We are continuing to evaluate our security procedures to ensure our school is the safest place possible and I am confident that it is.
As a school community we are left to grapple with the human toll of the thefts. When someone steals from you there is more taken than just physical property. There is a violation of trust. I want to caution us all not to jump to conclusions about why someone committed these crimes. I want to remind you not to make assumptions about the individual who was arrested. We don’t’ know that the person arrested did commit these crimes because he is in fact innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. We do not know why the thefts were committed. We only know that they were and what the police have told us about the progress of the case. It is at a moment like this where our core values can be tested the most and I want us all to remember two in particular today. The first is our respect for human differences. If we truly hold this at our core we will not make generalizations about people who commit crimes. The second is our commitment to community. Our entire community was hurt by these acts and we will only move beyond it if our entire community comes together to support each other and that includes, students, teachers, assistants, administrators, parents, cafeteria workers, support staff and especially the other custodians. I thank you all for our holding these values dear during this difficult time.
Here’s what Chisum originally planned to tell students on Friday regarding the arrest of a suspect in the recent thefts of tech gear and student jewelry projects/materials:
As you know we have been experiencing a series of thefts in the building over the last several months that have left us all concerned about the saftey of our belongings. On Wednesday afternoon an individual who has been working as a night custodian was taken into custody at his home and charged with these crimes. The Wellesley Police Department have recovered some of the items and are continuing their investigation. The court has ordered this person not be allowed on school property. We are continuing to evaluate our security procedures to ensure our school is the safest place possible.
As a school community we are left to grapple with the human toll of the thefts. When someone steals from you there is more taken than just physical property. There is a violation of trust. I want to caution us all not to jump to conclusions about why someone committed these crimes. I want to remind you not to make assumptions about the individual who was arrested. The reasons someone has for stealing have nothing to do with things like the job they have, the color of their skin, or their ethnic background. We do not know why the thefts were committed. We only know that they were and what the police have told us about the progress of the case. It is at a moment like this where our core values can be tested the most and I want us all to remember two in particular today. The first is our respect for human differences. If we truly hold this at our core we will not make generalizations about people who commit crimes. The second is our committment to community. Our entire community was hurt by these acts and we will only heal if our entire community comes together to support each other and that includes, students, teachers, assistants, administrators, parents, cafeteria workers, and support staff. I thank you all for our holding these values dear during this difficult time.
People in Wellesley are extremely judgmental, but then that is not a surprise to me. There are times when I am ashamed to say that I grew up in Wellesley because I am nothing like the majority of people in this town who look down upon me simply because I don’t have all the things that they have. I hate to inform everyone, but having “stuff” doesn’t make you a better person. It doesn’t make you kinder or more sensitive, in fact, it usually makes you just the opposite. It seems that the more people in this town have, the more miserable they are towards others. I don’t see what is wrong with what Mr. Chisum originally wrote about the thefts, except that it’s not politically correct according to the “la-di-da’s” of this town. People do often jump to conclusions and assume that the reason someone stole is because of their social status, or should I say, lack there-of, race, ethnicity, or job/ career status. I worked in a high end department store for over ten years, and let me tell you that the majority of the people who stole were considered upper middle class to upper class. So maybe before jumping to conclusions, looking at other people, and condemning them, the majority of Wellesleyians should look no further than themselves.
So who exactly is being “judgmental”? Assuming that you intended to spell the word judgemental, it is the height of hypocrisy to complain of assessing character simply on basis of race, ethnicity and job and at the same time labelling an entire community with this broad-brushed accusation. While clearly a well-to-do town in general, in my years in Wellesley I have met many different types of people: lawyers, engineers, teachers, police officers, republicans, democrats, doctors, artists, writers, business people, philosophers, students and yes, the janitorial staff at our schools. Ours is an interesting collection of folk. It is hard for me to imagine a single common sensibility among us all. If pressed, however, the first thing that comes to my mind is that people in our town care mostly about their children and the hope for their future. Yes, some of us are more zealous than others in this pursuit, but what I have observed are mostly well-intentioned, hard working people. The person who stole the ipads and laptops from our middle school was perhaps desperate, perhaps thought nobody would miss them or had some other imaginary justification for the act. That person was mistaken and we were all hurt. People will react in many ways to being betrayed, ways that some may regret upon further introspection. Alas, we are all human, but I want to live in a place where people do react, do care, do notice and do want to make things better. That is the Wellesley I know. I chose Wellesley as a place to raise and educate my children. But, when they ultimately move on to whatever path they choose, I am pretty sure I will stay.
To “Not V”, I never said everyone in this town, I said the majority, and I stand by my statement in full because I have lived here my whole life. My grandparents and parents came here as immigrants when Wellesley was a small and quaint town where people were humble. They worked hard, and they didn’t think that because maybe they had what seemed to others like an endless money supply that everyone else did as well. People were grateful for what they had, and didn’t think that keeping up with the Joneses was everything. Wellesley has become a town in which society sees some of its members as very “throw away”. It is not, in my opinion, a place where diversity is celebrated and embraced. I don’t know who you are or who you know or what you have observed, I can only speak for me and my experiences as well as the experiences of those who I have spoken to. I can only tell you the discomfort I felt when attending high school, I can only tell you how disgusted I feel when I frequent local stores and observe how people act. You have called me a hypocrite, yet you do not deny the fact that some people in this town look down upon other people. I just want to say how hurtful it was that my peers did not get to know me, yet that felt perfectly justified in judging. So maybe, I just felt that I wanted those people to know how I felt and how it hurt me. Instead, you read what I had to say and you decided to take pot shots at someone who don’t know in an open forum so by your standards, you are also judgemental and a hypocrite. Congratulations! Do you wanna tell me what’s wrong with what he said if it was honest and from his heart? Since you think you have all the answers and all, please grace us once again. Tell us all the answers for life, I’m sure you believe you have them.
V, first an apology is in order. It turns out according to Webster’s, your spelling is an accepted form of the word. You learn something new every day. So, no, I do not know everything, nor have I ever claimed as much. Nobody has all the answers. That is a human condition we all have to deal with in our short lives.
As for Jamie’s initial version, I actually agree with you there was nothing terribly wrong with it. As an educator, he was simply trying to turn the incident into teaching moment, which I commend him for. However, we do live in a society where the PC police are always on duty and I am not surprised that someone was concerned more about what the press and outsiders would think rather than worrying about how to best address those most affected, the students. The revised version had the same message, only with classic corporate “smoothing.” I too wish we could all be more direct about these matters.
I am also sorry that you felt mistreated in our high school. I am not sure how many years ago that was, but as someone who graduated from a nearby high school (not Wellesley) many years ago, I can attest that most people I know look back on their high school years as a less than favorite time in their life. High School has always been a popularity contest, with meanness, prejudice, selfishness and general ignorance abound. This is not unique to Wellesley. Was the “majority” of whom you speak mostly from your teenage experience?. I can tell you that kids do grow out of their adolescent attitudes and usually become decent human beings as adults. I get the sense that you were not referring to a sample of mostly adults in town as I was. Also, you do know that the patrons of our local stores are mostly from Weston, right? ;). I stand by my experience that a majority of non-teens in this town do not fit your description. Do I have neighbors who annoy me? Sure, just as would happen in any town. The majority of my neighbors, however, are good friends and also caring, thoughtful, sensitive people who I am happy to live among. Like you, I can only report what I have personally observed.