Response to FUESD letter regarding story on teacher Jennifer Humphreys

Mr. Morris,

I reject the first assertion that the headline “FUESD fights ruling that teacher be retained” is grossly inaccurate and misleading.”

Did FUESD not file an Administrative Writ of Mandamus with the Superior Court, of which we are in possession, asking the court to overturn the ruling from the Commission on Professional Competence favoring Humphreys? Is that not fighting the ruling?

Given that fact, the rest of that paragraph berating us for being “grossly inaccurate and misleading” and “unnecessarily spreading disinformation” doesn’t make sense either.

Regarding the second paragraph of your letter, we stated in the article in the first paragraph that the teacher refused both vaccination and testing – which was true. It is also true, to your point, that she was dismissed for not testing, given that she had already decided not to be vaccinated. The problem was that she refused both, as the testing would have been unnecessary if she would have been vaccinated. So, we don’t agree that the sentence is inaccurate.

However, in the spirit of compromise, we have changed “and” to “or” to make it more accurate from your perspective.

In addition, to be clear, we already clarified in paragraphs 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 19, and 21 that testing was the issue, so it was clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt to anyone who read the article that testing was clearly the issue. It also included the fact that she did respond and start testing after she was given notice of dismissal.

As for not contacting FUESD to get their comment, we understand after 25 years of covering the district, that because of district policy, it typically can’t and doesn’t comment on active and open employee issues. So Mr. Monroe/Village News filed a FOIA request with FUESD and used that information for the story. Mr. Monroe also attended the school board meetings for comments.

In a side note, FUESD is less than stellar at responding to our emails and requests. None-the-less, it is our policy to call and ask, even if we know there will be no direct response. We will make sure we call the district and just add to the story that the district didn’t respond, if in fact that continues to be the situation. I want to add that this unresponsive pattern is in contrast to six other school districts we report on, including FUHSD and Bonsall, which provide response to calls usually within 24 hours.

So, in conclusion, it appears to us that Mr. Monroe provided a very balanced story and we stand by our writer and our story.

Julie Reeder, publisher