Ethics

Freshwater Update, Day 4

By Ed Brayton

Dick Hoppe has his report on day 4 of the Freshwater hearings up at the Panda's Thumb. Here are some of the highlights. The first part concerns the middle school principal, Bill White, and his testimony. First, he says that Freshwater initially claimed he hadn't burned the student with the Tesla coil, then later admitted he had:

That afternoon White and Mr. Ritchie, the middle school assistant principal, met with Freshwater. According to White, when asked about it Freshwater initially said that nothing had occurred, but as the conversation proceeded admitted that there was a class exercise with shocks.

White instructed Freshwater to sequester the Tesla coil (I think the phrase used was "lock up" but I'm not sure). He subsequently instructed Bill Oxenford, chairman of the middle school science department, to retrieve all the Tesla coils in the department and turn them in to White. Oxenford returned three devices to White. Note that yesterday Freshwater testified that he retained the device he had used in class. White was not aware that there was a coil outstanding, and did not authorize Freshwater to remove one from the school.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on November 08, 2008 (boomark / email).