This week, I wrote about parents in the Haines Borough School District questioning how the district handled an incident last month in which three students used school laptops to create a sexually explicit document targeting their classmates.

Parents of targeted students say the district refused to show them the document, met with their children without telling them first, and treated the incident as a technology violation, which carries lighter consequences and less process than the district’s bullying and harassment rules.

Superintendent Lilly Boron would not discuss the case but spoke about how the district handles discipline, the potential of more monitoring of student technology, and where parents can turn when they feel a concern isn’t being handled well.

The Chilkat Valley News does not usually publish stories that rely on unnamed sources. But, in this case, naming the parents who spoke with us would identify their children, and in a community the size of Haines, we also withheld details like grade and gender that could let readers piece together who was involved.

I know the identities of both parents, confirmed key details with more than one source, and gave the district the opportunity to respond. Ultimately those decisions land on the editor's desk and I decided the public's interest in how the school district handles student safety outweighed the cost of leaving out those names. But, I'm open to your feedback and on how that impacted the story. Drop me a line at [email protected].

— Rashah McChesney, Editor