Four months after they vandalized their high school and forced the cancellation of a day of classes, the Cape Elizabeth students who escaped criminal prosecution for their actions and were never publicly identified purportedly have written a letter of apology to the public – anonymously.
Letters received at the Current’s editorial office and Cape Elizabeth town office last week state that they are from the students who committed the vandalism and were written as part of the students’ non-prosecution agreement with District Attorney Stephanie Anderson.
“We have taken responsibility for what we have done and are very sorry for our actions,” the one-paragraph apology reads.
However, the letter received at the Current contained no names and no return address.
Its writer or writers stated in a cover letter, also unsigned, that the letter was “for publication in the Current,” despite newspapers’ common practice of not publishing anonymous letters, and not publishing even signed letters if the writer’s identity cannot be verified.
Town Manager Mike McGovern said a letter received at town offices similarly stated that it was intended to be posted on the town Web site. He said the town does not post letters on the Web site and was not going to start doing so at the anonymous writers’ request.
Notations on the letter sent to the Current indicate that copies were also sent to the Cape Courier and to the high school.
“Our policy is that we don’t publish anonymous letters because it’s often impossible to verify the identity of the author and doing so would lead to a lack of accountability for the views expressed on the opinion page,” said Brendan Moran, executive editor at Current Publishing. “We can only guess that this letter is indeed from the Cape Elizabeth High School students responsible for the vandalism. It didn’t even have a return address, much less names. In keeping with that policy, we don’t intend to publish this apology.”
Superintendent Alan Hawkins was out of town last week and Monday, the Current’s publication deadline day, but stated in response to questions that “neither he nor Board Chair, Kathy Ray have seen or received an anonymous letter of regret from someone claiming to be a ‘Cape 10 student,'” Hawkins’ administrative assistant, Andrea Fuller, wrote Friday in an e-mail to the Current.
Cape Courier Editor Elizabeth Brogan said in an e-mail Tuesday morning that “(w)e have received the letter, but have not yet decided whether to publish it.”
None of the Cape Elizabeth School Board members responded to an e-mail sent July 31 by the Current seeking comment on the anonymous letter. School Board Chairwoman Kathy Ray also did not return a phone message seeking comment.
Anderson was in the office last week but did not return repeated telephone calls seeking comment. She also did not respond to questions in an e-mail sent to her Aug. 3, which requested a response by the Current’s deadline.
One of the dozens of terms in Anderson’s contract with the students stated that they were to “draft and submit an (unsigned) group letter for publication in a school newsletter or similar publication, to be posted on the Town of Cape Elizabeth website, and submitted to the Cape Courier and the Current for publication.”
Among the questions asked of Anderson is why she would require students to send an anonymous letter to newspapers for publication given newspaper policies on anonymity.
Neither the Department of Education, the Maine School Boards Association nor the Maine Principals Association collects data on vandalism at schools nor makes recommendations on how school officials should handle vandalism when it occurs.
“What we say is that the people at the local level have the facts and they have their own policies that they adopt on a school-by-school basis,” said Dale Douglass, executive director of the School Management Association, which represents both Maine school boards and Maine superintendents.
The Department of Education requires schools to report reams of information but does not require – or tabulate – reports on vandalism, said department spokesman David Connerty-Marin. The department also leaves apprehension and punishment of vandals up to individual school districts, he said.
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