Greg Wilkey, principal of East Side Elementary in Chattanooga, Tenn, wrote a moving letter to staff reflecting on the pandemic year. The letter was so good that it spread on Facebook and was even covered by some media outlets. One of the readers was Stacie Bonnick, principal of Washington Technology Magnet School in St. Paul, Minnesota. Wilkey's message resonated with Bonnick so much that she sent it out to her staff. With no attribution. As if she wrote it. In fact, she was so pleased with the letter that she sent it again later in a newsletter to the entire school community. From the Pioneer Press:
To at least one staff member at Washington Technology Magnet School, the principal's weekly message sounded a little too good.
"Upon reading this it did not seem like her usual writing which is typically of poor academic quality. With a quick google search I was able to determine this in fact was not her work and the entire thing was plagiarized from another principal in another state," the staffer wrote Dec. 23 in an anonymous email to Superintendent Joe Gothard and school board members, which the staffer later forwarded to the Pioneer Press.
Weeks later, Bonnick met with her supervisor and an investigator from the district's human resources department and admitted she plagiarized another principal's work.
"You indicated that this was a poor decision on your part," assistant superintendent Andrew Collins wrote in a discipline letter the school district released this week, four months after the Pioneer Press asked for information about the incidents.
Bonnick received a one-day suspension. Seems to me that she should receive a big fat F that would go on her "permanent record."
