Support Beaufort County’s great teachers on the front page

Wow! You really loaded the Aug. 9 paper with sensational writing negatively targeting Beaufort County teachers and administrators.

The front-page piece on Brittany Whetzel (a former teacher of English at Battery Creek High School) allegedly having sex with students in her home, and the piece on the school district being sued for allegedly failing to acknowledge and prevent bullying were exhaustively researched and prominently displayed. If your intent was to sell a few extra papers, you probably succeeded. If your intent was to “get noticed,” you definitely were.

This type of journalism (if you can call it that) belongs not in the headlines, but perhaps in the police reports, where it would not do so much to undermine the prodigious efforts of the hundreds of fine Beaufort County teachers and administrators who were once again getting ready to start another school year, with the very best they have to offer.

I have a suggestion. Put your investigative efforts into finding out how Whetzel got hired in the first place and how to keep it from happening again, and into finding out how bullying is treated in schools that have a record of success. Put inspirational teacher stories above the fold on the front page. They deserve your recognition.

Moss is gone; let’s move Beaufort County schools forward

“All of those things that take a few years to get in place and to work out the bugs, so to speak, are now in place. So leaving at this juncture and knowing that the next five years are going to be an amazing time for Beaufort County ... is tough to leave as a professional educator, ” former Beaufort County superintendent Jeff Moss said in your newspaper July 28.

It may require several years for the damage caused by his actions, approved and supported by the Moss Majority Loyalists on the school board, to be realized and to repair the devastation caused by “Hurricane Jeff.”

One thing is certain, the school district will move forward because thousands of dedicated staff, students, parents and community residents will unite and repair our school system to be better and stronger than ever.

Our district will prosper without the stain of nepotism and the shame of ethics violations. Divisiveness will be replaced with unity, obliqueness with transparency. Emotional loyalists will be unseated by individuals who are driven by ethics and morals, critical thinkers and truth-tellers. Research and data will drive best practices, and funding will support real needs. Truth and facts will dethrone lies and misrepresentations. Dignity, respect and civility will expel toxicity. Collaboration and compromise will unseat tribalism.

The stakeholders have learned from the past five years. This November, voters will elect individuals who are ethical, truthful, courageous, and collaborative, who place their loyalty to students, staff and residents above all else. A new tide will rise and lift all boats.

Report how Trump is hurting South Carolina

We really deserve more comprehensive coverage of the ways President Donald Trump’s policies are damaging South Carolina.

Major companies and industries are being shut down or pushed toward bankruptcy by misguided tariffs and the governor’s decision to turn down federal assistance for health care, manufacturing and disaster assistance.

Many of us moved here from other states and love the state, but we see there are alternatives to what is happening now.

Please recognize that we can be stronger and better if we consider and vote for progressive candidates.

Don’t vote for more of the same and more layoffs.