Yikes, Winsor’s Back!
February 15, 2008 on 8:25 pm | In Education, Local, Main |
Just got back from interviewing Malcolm McKenzie, the new head of Hotchkiss School. He’s a very impressive (yet down-to-earth) “global educator.” We’ll have a profile on Malcolm in the LJ either this coming Thursday or next.
Speaking of independent schools (lame transition?), I couldn’t help notice that an old controversy from the 80s and 90s here in Lakeville resurfaced in yesterday’s Boston Globe.
It seems that Winsor Copeland, one of the teachers implicated in a child sex scandal at Indian Mountain School, has resurfaced in a U.S. setting where he could have contact with children. [the photo at top left is not of Copeland but of a model]
Copeland is now a “volunteer” fundraiser at his middle school alma mater, Pine Cobble School in Williamstown, Mass. But Globe columnist Kevin Cullen paints a picture of a school that is not being candid about Copeland’s role there. It doesn’t pass the smell test. Is he spend his time licking envelopes, or is Copeland, as a Pine Cobble newsletter suggests, doing something more? From Cullen’s column:
The fall 2007 issue of “The Cobblestone,” the Pine Cobble School’s newsletter, paints a considerably different picture. In it, there is an article entitled “Winsor Copeland, Master Teacher of Math, French and Life’s Lessons.”
The article describes Copeland’s past teaching days at Pine Cobble and notes that he left Indian Mountain in 1993 “on the verge of academic burnout,” but mentions nothing of the circumstances. The article suggests Copeland is more involved in the school than either he or Edgerton acknowledged.
“Now a new generation of Pine Cobble students is under his influence,” the article about Copeland says. “The former PCS student, teacher, and board member is back on campus, this time as a volunteer.”
I thought that rather than quote Cullen quoting the newsletter, I would retrieve the publication myself. But surprise! The 2007 Cobblestone has been removed from Pine Cobble’s website.
You know, I recall when this scandal broke how heart-breaking it was for the victims who came forward. A picture was painted of a campus that was out of control and a headmaster (the late Peter Carleton) who looked the other way.
[Disclosure: I write occasional freelance articles for IMS publications and have nothing but the utmost respect for the professionals who run the place now. They had nothing to do with Carleton’s mess but, alas, they still must bear its burden now and again.]
I was not working at the LJ when the scandal broke but followed our stories closely. Unfortunately, our digital archives do not go back that far and I could easily blow an entire day going through old LJ microfilm at the Scoville Library.
And there’s not much else out there on the Web about this travesty. My recollection is no charges were ever filed against Copeland and others because, as Cullen suggests, the statute of limitations had expired. A subsequent lawsuit was filed against the school by two victims alleging a teacher there had sexually abused as many as 100 students.
One of the plaintiffs, Rob Longley, subsequently became a reporter at the LJ. One of the IMS teachers implicated in the scandal, Chris Simonds, moved to Millerton after resigning from IMS and became a reporter at The Independent in Hillsdale.
From the Globe column and from this piece I found in iBerkshires.com, it looks like someone at Pine Cobble isn’t telling the truth. Why not come out and tell the us that Copeland is a much beloved alumnus and former Pine Cobble teacher who deserves a second chance and can help the school raise money? Or that promises were made long ago to Copeland’s mother, a former director of the school?
I’m always amazed at how poorly private schools handle these kinds of crises. They tend to just clam up and hope the problem goes away. Or they don’t want to address the matter because of a fear of litigation.
Remember when Paul Christopher, then the head of Berkshire School in nearby Sheffield, Mass., faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment in 2001? After casting aspersions on Christopher’s accuser, the school ultimately hired a Manhattan law firm to look into the complaints. They concluded the charges were without merit. And we all know what happened there. State investigators concluded otherwise and Christopher was finally forced to resign.
Maybe schools don’t want to repeat the mistakes of former Choate Headmaster Charles Dey, who went on 60 Minutes and faced a grilling (from … who was it? Mike Wallace? Morley Safer?) over the expulsion of 14 Choate students in 1984 for attempting to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. I recall watching that interview and feeling sorry for Dey as he endured a withering assault from a skillful interviewer.
Be that as it may, private schools are unique among educational institutions. They really don’t have to explain much of anything to the general public beyond what is required by law. At some point, however, Pine Cobble will have to explain to its constituents why Copeland is back on campus. And I’m sure a disgruntled parent or alum will leak it. Stay tuned …
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I am a Pine Cobble parent with two children at the school. I was not aware of the situation with Winsor Copland until I received an email about it from the school. The email makes it clear that the school is cutting off all relationships with Mr. Copeland and is committed to keeping its community informed about the matter.
I would like to urge you not to jump to conclusions about the school’s response. (You have said, “it looks like someone at Pine Cobble isn’t telling the truth,” and “they don’t want to address the matter because of a fear of litigation”). My experience with Pine Cobble over the last seven years has been that they take issues of student safety very seriously. Of course, I’m concerned about my children’s safety at the school, but I’m willing to give the school the benefit of the doubt.
As for the removal of the newsletter from the school’s website…isn’t this what you would have done? I believe that any institution, having discovered that it had inadvertently published an article praising someone suspected of infamous behavior would do the same thing. I can’t fault the school for that, even if it frustrates your desire to research the school’s mistakes.
Comment by Jeff Goldwasser — February 19, 2008 #
Jeff,
Thanks for your comment. I’m sure Pine Cobble is a fine place and I wouldn’t want to judge a school based solely on how it handles one incident. That would not be fair.
The reason I say it looks like someone at PCS isn’t telling the truth is that when the Globe columnist first asked Headmaster Nick Edgerton what Copeland does at the school, “he was quick to minimize Copeland’s current role.” Then when Edgerton was apprised of Copeland’s past at IMS, he quickly denied any knowledge of it. That just doesn’t pass the smell test.
And Edgerton’s description of Copeland’s role at the school is very much at odds with the article in the Cobblestone. Plus, Edgerton’s denials notwithstanding, Copeland says PCS knows about his past. I repeat, it looks like someone at PCS isn’t telling the truth.
What I said was that schools typically do not like to talk about these matters publicly for fear of litigation. I don’t know whether such is the case at PCS, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.
BTW, since the Cobblestone is stilled cached, anyone who wants to view the newsletter can do so by Googling “Winsor Copeland”. The fifth result that comes up is the newsletter “From The Headmaster”. If you click on “view as HTML,” you can read the 2007 Cobblestone (minus the graphics and Copeland’s photo).
Comment by Terry — February 19, 2008 #
Thank you Jeff,
I am also a parent of 2 children at Pine Cobble, I am also a Pine Cobble alum and so is my mother. I did go to PC when Win Copeland was teaching, but I was younger. Anyway, I am in defense of Nick Edgerton. What else should he say? He has said that all ties between Copeland and the school have been severed and he does need to protect the interest of the school. I don’t know if he knew or not but I don’t believe anyone is covering anything up, nothing is smelly. Mr. Copeland also had no contact with any children while helping the school, I believe his capacity was as someone helping with the Capital Campaign. He was not on campus during school hours, I never saw him, and I am there a lot, I only saw him at the Founders’ Day event, and annual alumni fundraiser. I don’t think Nick was minimizing Copeland’s involvement with the school. I think his involvement was minimal.
Comment by Adria Weatherbee — February 19, 2008 #
I am also a Pine Cobble parent with two children at the school. I don’t know who at Pine Cobble, if anyone, knew of Winsor Copeland’s past, but I do know a tendentious hatchet job when I see one, and Kevin Cullen’s Boston Globe article is one.
It is indeed tendentious to characterize someone as “quick to minimize” something unless you at least have some specific claim that that thing is not minimal. And it was dishonest for Cullen to excerpt three vague quotes from The Cobblestone (”a new generation of Pine Cobble students is under his influence” — “[He’s] back on campus, this time as a volunteer” — and “Hearing the chatter of the students as they move from class to class”) without including the one more specific quote which tends to support the claim, shared by Copeland and Nick Edgerton, that Copeland was there to raise funds and had nothing to do with the students: “I basically do whatever Sue Wells, the school’s Director of Development, asks me to.”
Does Kevin Cullen believe Copeland has been doing any teaching or coaching, or otherwise working with students? Mr. Cullen goes out of his way to imply such activities, and to imply that Nick Edgerton is lying about them, but Cullen makes no such specific (and thus falsifiable) claim. Regardless of how this affair plays out, that makes Cullen a dishonest coward in my book.
I doubt very much that Copeland has been working with students. If he has, this fact would be known to the students and will become publicly known very quickly. It also would almost certainly have been mentioned in the 770-word article about him in The Cobblestone.
Finally, consider the quotes from the mother of the child who was reportedly abused by Copeland 25 years ago: “It’s outrageous,” the woman on the phone was saying. “Does anybody at Pine Cobble know what happened at Indian Mountain?” and “Either they don’t know what happened, or they don’t want to know what happened,” she said.
Well, if they didn’t know what happened, then Pine Cobble’s actions are not, in fact, outrageous. One thing these quotes, if accurate, tell us is that the woman never bothered to call Pine Cobble, but only the Boston Globe; if she had called Pine Cobble and they did nothing about it, then she would have solid grounds for considering the school’s actions “outrageous.”
I know that Pine Cobble does background checks on people who teach for them. It would perhaps be outrageous if they failed to do so. But I would not call them outrageous for failing to do this sort of thing for a volunteer alumni fundraiser, or a parent who wants to chaperone a field trip, or some other person whose contact with students is apt to be incidental or monitored – it’s hard enough to get such volunteers as it is without treating everyone like a criminal.
Comment by DWPittelli — February 20, 2008 #
DW,
Well, if PCS did not know about Copeland’s past, they they should have, as it’s been common knowledge in the independent school world for some time. You could make a case that such ignorance is (in itself) “outrageous.”
The evidence Cullen had that Copeland’s involvement with the school was not “minimal” and could extend to working with students was in the school’s own newsletter which you yourself quoted: “a new generation of Pine Cobble students is under his influence.” How could students be “under his influence” if he’s doing nothing more than stuffing envelopes and making phone calls for the development office?
Since I’m not intimately involved with the situation it’s hard for me to say whether Cullen’s piece was a “hatchet job.” I can tell you that when journalists get the sense that they are being lied to, they often try to convey that in the story. This is a strange episode that leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Please keep me posted. Thanks.
Comment by Terry — February 20, 2008 #