This is in response to the editorial Nov. 5 concerning James Raymond. The editorial stated that “The school and police departments were caught unawares.” The police department may very well have been caught unaware, but the school department was certainly aware. A story in the Sun Journal Nov. 1 reported that in the previous school year, another very courageous child reported to her parents that Raymond had tickled her around the mid-section. That child also knew what Raymond had done was wrong, as did her parents who reported it to school authorities. Those authorities decided to handle the incident in-house.

An incident of that type should have raised red flags to everyone who was aware of it.

What I would have liked to have learned from the informational meeting was just how that was handled “in-house” by school authorities of Park Avenue Elementary School.

Was Raymond given any psychlogical testing to determine if he really might have been listening to a “little voice” that made him act inappropriately, or was it decided that he was merely a young, inexperienced teacher who had simply made a mistake?

After hearing Tom Morrill state that “We simply don’t take chances,” it seems that someone at Park Avenue School took a big chance with the safety of the students, and it turned out to be a very big mistake.

Richard Bragdon, Auburn