Apparently the Vineland Nj School District has decided to drop the Crystal Gunns case. Gunns, aka Louisa C. Tuck, was outted last week as an employee of the school district. But the real question now is who ratted her out?

Charles D. Ottinger, Superintendent Vineland School District writes: Neither the Vineland Board of Education nor the Vineland Public School District initiated the investigation into Louisa Tuck. We started our investigation after a reporter for The Daily Journal contacted our board president.

After hearing rumors and being contacted by the newspaper and some of our parents, we did conduct an investigation to determine if there was any truth to the allegations. Upon learning that the allegations had some merit, we contacted our solicitors to get a legal opinion on how to handle this unusual case, “School aide in adult films” (DJ-11/21). We also contacted attorneys at the New Jersey School Boards Association for their input. As has been documented several times in area newspapers, we were advised by all of our legal experts that nothing could or should be done with this case. For that reason, we ended our investigation.

As a matter of general concern and practice, district personnel did interview Mrs. Tuck to advise her of the potential for publicity. She also was advised that parents were contacting her school. Mrs. Tuck was not asked to resign and she has not been terminated. In fact, there has been no impact on her employment. The school board president did offer a personal perspective, but no other board members offered a personal or professional opinion.

Do I have concerns? Yes, I always have concerns when I think students might be exposed to things to which they should not be exposed at their age. I understand that our society is lenient and that most of our students are exposed to all sorts of things in their daily lives, but I still believe we have an obligation as educators to provide a moral compass for our students. For that reason, I want all of our employees to conduct themselves in a forthright and professional manner at all times while maintaining a standard of decency both in and out of the workplace. I think any superintendent would tell you that he wants all of his staff members to provide a positive example to students that they all can emulate.

I certainly understand that people make mistakes, and when given the opportunity many people learn from their mistakes and actually become better people for having gone through that type of experience. While we want to teach our students about forgiveness, we also want them to understand that certain behavior is still considered by many to be unacceptable. Notwithstanding that point, it has been made clear to me that most of our parents do not want their children involved in any type of negative behavior they feel might have a detrimental impact on their children’s futures. So there really is a fine line between forgiveness and accountability, and both are important life lessons.

For this case, the district is trying hard to consider both perspectives while keeping in mind that our first and foremost obligation is to our students and their families.