The Phoebe Prince story continues to lay waste to all in its path, like Gen. William T. Sherman’s march to the sea in the American Civil War.
Members of the "Count Me In" volunteer group are, from left, Michael L. Brouillette of Holyoke, Tanya L. Kopec of South Hadley and Stephanie A. Viens of Belchertown. Viens has been criticized for leading a school trip to Ireland.Let’s see if we can get this straight. Some students from South Hadley High School have planned a school trip to Ireland and this is – international news?
Let’s color in the nuances.
South Hadley High School is where 15-year-old Phoebe Prince was studying as a freshman when she hanged herself in January 2010. Since her suicide, which followed a period of harassment by a few classmates, Prince has become the world-wide symbol for bullying and its victims.
Her appeal is undeniable. She was pretty, young, vivacious and vulnerable. Newly arrived from her native Ireland, she has a special place in the hearts of the Irish.
Six former South Hadley High School students have been charged with felonies in connection with Prince’s treatment, although not all the details have been spelled out. They are long gone from the school, having either withdrawn or been suspended.
As far as we know, no other students or, for that matter, school officials, have been charged with any crimes. It should also be pointed out that those who are charged have not yet been convicted, although in the arena of public opinion some already have them in orange jumpsuits and, in the cases of the two male students charged with statutory rape, jail-raped for poetic justice.
Now it has come to light that some students at South Hadley High are going to Ireland in April, a class trip that was planned before Prince killed herself, and the juggernaut that is the Phoebe Prince story continues to lay waste to all in its path like Gen. William T. Sherman’s march to the sea in the American Civil War.
As far as I can tell, the story had its genesis in the March 13 issue of The Sunday Independent, an Irish newspaper. According to reporter Donal Lynch, the trip is being seen as “yet another example of lessons not learned in the 14 months since the 15-year-old tragically took her own life.”
It’s unclear in the story who is doing this seeing.
Lynch quotes a single, unnamed parent at what is apparently South Hadley High School saying, “What kind of welcome do they imagine they are going to get in Ireland?”
The unnamed parent cites a federal investigation of the school that no one seems able to verify and adds, “They are now using school funds to travel thousands of miles to where the parents of the girl live. Are they trying to provoke them or something?”
It is pointed out in the story that Shannon Airport in Dublin, where the plane will land, is less than an hour’s drive from the house where Prince once lived and that the students might have the nerve to visit Oxford, England, where Prince’s father Jeremy studied.
A next day story on IrishCentral.com reported that Prince’s relatives were “shocked at yet another callous decision by the school authorities,” and we were off to the races.
The abominable class trip went viral. It was even reported that, if you can believe this, a teacher who has “come under fire for a perceived lack of support for Phoebe Prince,” is leading the trip to Ireland.
This teacher has already been identified in news accounts as the person referred to by Jeremy Prince as someone the family believes spread untruths about Phoebe on the Internet. In voicing his displeasure to a television reporter, however, Prince did not mention the teacher by name, saying he had no proof of this. She has been laid waste, anyway.
By the way, it’s also unclear which of Prince’s relatives are “shocked” by the “callous decision” to go ahead with the school trip, since both Jeremy Prince and Eileen Moore, Phoebe’s aunt, have publicly appealed to the Irish to give the South Hadley school kids a break.
A group of protesters is planning to be there at the airport when the plane lands, nonetheless. More laying waste will undoubtedly ensue.
Fred Contrada is a staff writer with The Republican. He can be reached at fcontrada@repub.com.