View Point

I was chairing a meeting yesterday and at the end I invited any other business (as you do in these sorts of meetings). A woman sitting next to me was very eager and leapt in quickly to say yes. She announced very breathlessly and dramatically, 'A local school has been judged to have discriminated against a disabled child.' She continued to say which school it was and how awful it was and how as a body of people we should write a strongly worded letter to the school to say how we condemn it for it's actions 'in this day and age'.
I knew that YMCA work in this school which put me in a compromising position and someone else attending the meeting said, 'I couldn't sign a letter to that effect because I've worked with the boy in question and I agree with the school.' Apparently I steered the meeting well through this item and requested that any agency that wanted to write could do so individually.
Further details about the case revealed that the boy in question's disability is ADHD and was excluded for violent behaviour.
I'm pretty sure based on the passions of the family and the lady who was at the meeting, that this will become a local news item.
It is good to have both sides of the story though...
I was also thinking about something else this morning. About someone, angry and grieving insisting that she has been insulted through a 'sloppily' written letter. Looked at another way, she's insulting the handwriting of a man with a disability.