Re: Principal's trips with girls raise concerns, July 24.
Three times in this article it is stated that the Department of Children and Families or the Largo Police Department investigated Community Christian School principal Dick Baker and found that he committed no illegal acts with his young female students. Why then did the St. Petersburg Times feel the need for a two-page piece that does nothing but repeat gossip and embarrass the school and Baker?
The only girl questioned supposedly told of improper touching but did not back this up when asked by authorities. The only parent extensively quoted, Peggy Staples, seems to be an overprotective woman who sees scandal behind every bush. Some school employees made negative remarks, but this can be "sour grapes."
The only thing this article did was compromise the reputation of the school and Dick Baker. Overzealous prosecutors will be looking for crime where it might not exist, and innocent children could end up in more traumatic questioning by authorities. At any rate, articles such as this can make for a climate that would make it more difficult for potential court proceedings to be impartial.
Child abuse, real or fabricated, has been in the news for quite some time and should be covered, but only when there is a real story, not simply innuendo. This is all this story had. I am surprised that you stooped this low. I would have expected more from you; I will in the future.
-- Theressa Placke, Tampa
Principal has earned respect
Re: Principal's trips with girls raise concerns.
After reading your article on the principal, I was extremely upset and disgusted with the paper for putting this on the front page. Has the Times become a gossip tabloid? There was no wrongdoing found by police, who were just doing their job.
Your paper has done a terrible injustice to principal Dick Baker and his students by associating him with child abuse bureaus. I have known Mr. Baker on a personal level for 12 years. We have spent approximately 3,000 hours playing basketball together, sometimes with his students. He has treated all people with the utmost respect. Out of the hundreds of men we have competed with, none has earned more respect for honesty. When bullied by the mean and powerful on the court, he has always chosen not to fight back.
I hope this time he will fight for his students whom he treated as his own children, instilling in them faith in goodness, respect, achievement, love and joy. I pray that this wrong can be righted.
-- Harlan Newman, Seminole
A worthy role model
Re: Principal's trips with girls raise concerns.
I am so outraged at this story I had to write a response. I have lived across the street from Dick Baker and his wife Carol for almost 12 years. In the time that I have known them, they have been the most devoted parents and teachers I have ever met, with an especially strong faith in God. I have seen them demonstrate that devotion with their own children as well as well as the children from their respective schools. It is unfortunate that we don't have more people in this world like them. They have so much love and attention to give children - something parents today don't have a lot of time to do. There have always been lots of kids at their house while their own were growing up, as well as after their own were grown and gone.
My impression is that Dick was so devastated after the loss of his daughter in 2000, that he found comfort in spending time with the kids at his school to help ease his pain. I know the kids at his school were also affected by the loss because Carrie spent time at the school helping out during the summers. It was a way for them to comfort and heal each other.
It is obvious that people who are making these accusations do not know Dick and Carol on a personal level. In my opinion, their kids were probably not invited to Disney because they did not earn the invitation, so the parents had to make a big stink out of nothing. Also, there has been so much in the media lately about the priests and religion, these people just jumped on the bandwagon. It's unfortunate that the Bakers not only have lost one of God's greatest gifts, a child, but also now have to go through the humiliation of these unfounded accusations that will taint his career. What a sad, vengeful, paranoid world we live in today.
My daughter's father died when she was 11 months old. I would have been grateful to have Dick Baker as a role model to her while she was growing up.
-- Patricia O'Sullivan, Seminole
Poor judgment all around
Re: Principal's trips with girls raise concerns.
It appears to me that Dick Baker used poor judgment in some of his relationships with his students. As a parent I would be very uncomfortable with my child going on a trip with only one adult as a chaperone. I have made it a practice to go as a chaperone on most of my children's excursions, whether they were church or school related.
It also appears to me that the Times has used poor judgment. Mr. Baker (no relation of mine) was investigated and found innocent. His case is inactive but not closed. So why is this story worthy of the front page? You have done a great disservice to Mr. Baker and his school, and I feel you owe him and his family an apology. What gives you the right to drag an innocent man's name through the mud? This is a matter between him, the parents and whatever operating board the school has. It's not your business nor is it mine.
-- Jim Baker, Seminole
Outraged and disgusted
After reading your article in the July 24 paper about the principal of a private school taking young girls alone on overnight trips to Disney World, I must say that as a parent I am outraged and disgusted. Since the school is a Christian one and Dick Baker "appears" to be a very strict Christian, I can see how the parents of the students might bestow an extra amount of trust upon him.
Even so, I have to ask myself what kind of a school would allow its principal to take a select group of female students alone overnight to Disney? What kind of a parents would allow their daughters to spend the night in a hotel room with a man in his 50s? And what kind of man in his 50s would feel right spending the night alone in a hotel room with a bunch of middle school girls? And why aren't these girls allowed to talk about the trips they take? Why are they so secretive? Everyone knows they go on the trips, so I would imagine jealousy would not be an issue. The others are probably already jealous.
Why does this man take the same students over and over again? Why not take all the students? Where are the adult female chaperones? And doesn't anyone see the absurdity in one student being taken to Disney 81 times? Isn't anyone uncomfortable with the fact that he buys these girls matching swimsuits?
Personally I think that Mr. Baker and his board need to be held accountable for this extremely inappropriate behavior. For this to have been allowed to continue for this length of time is a disgrace to the people involved as professionals, as Christians and as human beings.
-- Lynne Kluytman, Largo
Not a healthy situation
Re: Principal's trips with girls raise concerns.
I'm not sure which is more frightening, this man's bizarre behavior or the number of parents who think this behavior is even remotely appropriate. Come on people, what can you possibly be thinking?
Even if investigations have found no crime, 900 trips to Disney World, dressing little girls in fairy costumes, having a fixation with children's bathing suits, attending doll tea parties and having little girls wrap themselves around you to guess their weight is not rational behavior for a 52-year-old man, let alone a trusted education administrator. This not a healthy situation for impressionable adolescents.
-- Tony Wood, St. Petersburg
Voucher program's flaws revealed
Re: Islamic Academy to lose state aid, July 19.
I was saddened to read that the Islamic Academy of Florida will immediately lose about $350,000 (some one-third of the school's budget) from the Corporate Tax Credit voucher program. This money is suddenly being cut off out of public concern regarding the school's ties to professor Sami Al-Arian, and the ongoing terrorist investigation surrounding him. There may turn out to be no problem at the academy, but some 100 students will lose "scholarships" immediately. At worst, the school may have to close if funding is not restored quickly, according to the directors.
This is a sad situation, but not surprising. It points to one of the fatal flaws in the governor's voucher programs. When Bush pushed through these programs - the corporate program is only one of them - he promised that there would be no accountability demands on any of the private or religious schools involved. So from the beginning there has been no oversight regarding teacher certification, the nature of the curriculum being taught, or even whether students are improving academically. The state does not want to know, since a parent's satisfaction is deemed to be the only thing that matters.
So today, through Bush's voucher programs, millions in taxpayer money is drained away from public education, and flows to hundreds of schools of many descriptions and many viewpoints. Although public money is funding these schools, the state Department of Education knows virtually nothing about what's happening, and does not ask. As Senate President Jim King said jokingly in May, he could start a school for witches under the law and receive corporate tax credit scholarships.
John Kirtley, chairman of the funding organization that receives and hands out corporate monies, correctly notes that the children in the Islamic school have become "pawns in a political game." Kirtley should know, since he helped to push the politically charged tax credit voucher program, and contributed $100,000 to the Republican Party. Bush's voucher programs have indeed been part of a political game from the beginning, and these are the rules. Relentlessly attack public education, cut funding, and demand ever greater accountability. At the same time, divert more and more taxpayer money to private and religious schools, and look the other way since the "private sector" needs no oversight whatever. It's a reckless game that has led directly to the current sad situation.
-- The Rev. Dr. Harry B. Parrott Jr., St Petersburg
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