EDITORIAL

Office-seeking as grudge sport

5/13/2017

Former Superintendent Patrick Hickey should move on from the Washington Local School District and let the district move on from him.

Mr. Hickey is running for school board despite being barred from district grounds and despite a restraining order requiring him to stay away from a current board member.

Mr. Hickey resigned in 2015 after two investigations into his behavior, a letter of reprimand, and a suspension. He was accused of harassing a female employee of the district and her husband after an affair with the woman ended. 

The terms of Mr. Hickey’s separation agreement from the district required him to stay off school grounds except to attend his children’s school events, but he couldn’t even manage to follow those rules, resulting in the board banning him from district property after he allegedly acted abusively at a high school basketball game.

Local politics is not an appropriate forum for personal grudges. 

School districts need board members who show that they respect rules and the bounds of civility, as well as fellow human beings.

Mr. Hickey is clearly not a person with the temperament for public office, and even less so this office in this community.

The best thing Mr. Hickey could do to help the district and the schoolchildren he professes to love would be to drop his bid for school board. But if he doesn’t, voters in the district should recall the acrimony and chaos of 2015 and 2016 and render a final verdict at the polls.