May 2nd 2019

Dear Parents, Guardians, Governors, and Staff,

By now I am sure you are all aware of the technical issue that occurred this morning and resulted in the school's heating system being stuck at maximum for a period of several hours. I would like to thank everyone for their assistance in handling the situation, especially when it became clear that we would be required to send students home early due to the dangerous temperatures being reached in the classrooms and hallways. I understand that any time we have to deviate from our standard schedules can cause problems for many of you, and I appreciate your patience as we worked to resolve the issue. I can now assure everyone that the problem has been fully resolved and that GCMS will open as usual tomorrow morning.

Many of you will also no doubt have been made aware of a secondary incident that occurred this morning. I wanted to write and clear up a number of rumors that are circulating regarding a member of staff being suspended and to clarify exactly what took place, my position on the matter, and what will happen next so you can talk about the situation with your children and help to avoid any further escalation of these rumors.

To begin, I do have to confirm that Dr. Grace has been placed on suspension due to what is being classified as a serious breach of school security protocols. However, I wish to make my position immediately clear that I fully support Dr. Grace and the decisions he made and will be arguing for his immediate reinstatement at a board meeting scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I can also assure parents and guardians that support of him in this matter is unanimous and that he has the complete backing of all faculty members.

Dr. Grace's classroom is located in our main building and has three external doors that lead directly outside. As part of GCMS's commitment to rigorous security for our students and staff, it is school policy that all three of these doors must remain locked at all times whenever students are present in the building, with the exception of the fire door, which has an emergency egress release mechanism that can be used only from inside. During the heating system fault this morning, Dr Grace's classroom heated up at a much faster rate than other rooms due to its numerous windows and east-facing direction. This meant that temperatures in the room were already approaching 120 degrees by the end of period one. Dr. Grace made the decision that the immediate health risk to students from these rapidly climbing temperatures outweighed the potential risk from an intruder and unlocked and opened the doors to reduce the temperature to safer levels. A member of our custodial team saw the doors propped open and reported the situation through official channels as a serious safety breach. Given that there was clear and direct evidence that a faculty member had indeed intentionally broken a key safety policy, I was forced to immediately suspend Dr. Grace against my better judgement.

There is absolutely no truth to any rumors that any physical altercation took place between Dr. Grace and another member of staff.

I will attend a meeting with the board of governors tomorrow afternoon in which I will argue that Dr. Grace's decision was the correct one given the extraordinary circumstances and that he put the immediate needs of his students first—something I ask of all my colleagues and which I am happy to report is always the case from our wonderful team here at GCMS. While I am disappointed that such a meeting is required, I am relieved that it has only come about because everybody involved was acting in what they genuinely believed to be the best interests of our students and out of a lived commitment to keep those students safe.

I hope to be able to write to you again tomorrow afternoon and provide an update once common sense is able to prevail.

Yours sincerely,

Ms. Patricia White

Principal, Grover Cleveland Middle School