Leading off today: It hasn't gotten much attention outside Erie County, but there has been a fascinating series of reports in
The Buffalo News this week detailing a very messy situation.
What started with the dismissal of a girls basketball coach has now spiraled into accusations — unsubstantiated, we must point out — of sexual misconduct.
In this morning's story, the paper reported that Buffalo School Superintendent James A. Williams told the Buffalo Board of Education in executive session Tuesday that Michelle Stiles was dismissed as the volunteer coach of the McKinley High team because of suspicions that she was having sexual relations with girls on the team.
But Williams also told board members he lacked proof to back up the suspicion, according to several board members who spoke on condition of anonymity. As the paper notes, sexual contact with an underage student is a criminal offense but police sources say no complaints have been lodged against Stiles, nor has any investigation been opened against her more than two months after her removal.
It's increasingly apparent that the school district is caught in a very awkward position now — either they failed to take appropriate action to take an alleged sexual predator off the streets or they've smeared the reputation of a well-liked coach. It's looking very likely that the coach is a victim.
Either way, this story has legs and figures to play out for several more days if not weeks. Here's a summary of how it got to this point:
Stiles was dismissed shortly after running afoul of James Daye, the boys basketball coach. Stiles angered him, she says, by questioning girls on the team about why Daye was seen leaving the house where one of them lived. Daye was visiting an adult there, according to girls on the team, and Stiles said she did not pursue the matter.
Daye told the paper he had no involvement in Stiles’ dismissal.
Next, senior basketball player Jayvonna Kincannon was suspended from McKinley in December for five days after using a cell phone in school to try to get on the agenda of the Buffalo Board of Education to speak in support of Stiles.
The suspension was later turned into seven weeks, with additional charges of leaving school on two occasions without approval and wearing a hoodie. (I'd digress into a string of Bill Belichick jokes if this wasn't such a serious subject; seven weeks is a longer suspension than most students get for incidents involving physical attacks.) That triggered a finding by the School Board’s ethics committee, chaired by a sitting City Court judge, that the Board of Education should hold hearings
