It’s not your fault if you are harmed because your school does the minimum to protect you by only doing the minimum screening of its employees and volunteers.

It’s not your fault if your school district does little to help with outside professional investigations or contaminate any outside investigations or consultations.

It’s not your fault if your school has stopped teaching ethics and true history, even if their top administrators have been found on ethics violations and overlook ethical and historical violations in our history.

It’s not your fault if your school and community leaders provide only the minimum safety precautions and corrections for its citizens, including their rights to free speech. Free speech should not be offered at a minimum standard.

It’s not your fault if those entrusted in community safety care more about their “bottom line” than the insurance and assurance given to the children’s and families’ safety precautions.

It’s not your fault if our elected officials plagiarize a whole child and community approach and claim it as their own, then claim to care about our social, emotional, recreational, economical and intellectual needs but only do the minimum to help all of us succeed.

You are what you do, and not just what you say you’ll do.

It’s not our fault for some of the harm that has been done.

Please take a personal oath to “do no harm” for all our stakeholders’ sake, and especially for the sake of our children.

Dennis Smiddle

Canonsburg

The writer is a retired Pennsylvania child care licensing representative.

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