My son was a student at The Barnard School on 9/11 and his teacher was Geraldine Davie. Ms. Davie’s daughter, Amy O’Doherty, died on 9/11 at the World Trade Center. It was a horrible time and the death of Ms. Davie’s daughter made the event personal for the kids in her class, including my son. Remarkably, Ms. Davie returned to work after the tragedy to finish out the school year. I can recall as if it were yesterday the “graduation” ceremony where Ms. Davis told the families how important it was for her to return to Barnard after 9/11 and how being around the kids is what helped her get through the first months after he daughter’s death.
On the web today, I came across this wonderful video on YouTube – a 10 minute presentation by Barnard principal Ms. Lambert and Greenhouse Chairwoman Millie Radjonic given on June 2008 about Amy’s Greenhouse. I encourage readers to watch the video and consider buying a brick to help them raise money.
With regret, however, I must note that this video is wildly inconsistent with the professed policies of New Rochelle’s Director of Technology Christine Coleman. She consistently says that displaying photos and videos of children on the web is dangerous. This video is chock full of images of students and I know for a fact that not all of the parents were consulted about using images of their children and uploading the video to the web. I know that because my daughter’s image appears in the video more than once. Not only is this video on the web but has been uploaded to YouTube, the world’s largest video sharing site.
I have previously seen the other side of this issue. About eighteen months I took photos of my daughter and her classmates at the Barnard School Field Day. I offered to share them with the other parents by uploading them to a password-protected photo sharing service from Apple Computer if the school would hand out the URL and password to parents. I did not speak to her but I was told that Ms. Lambert would not allow it on the grounds that it was “dangerous” and against school policy to upload student’s photos to the web.
For my part, I would have given my permission to use my daughter’s image in this video had someone asked. I would gladly give it now. I certainly do not want to see the video taken down if it will help tell the story of Amy’s Greenhouse or help them raise money. It just strikes me of another example of how the District enforces policies when it suits them and ignores those same policies when it does not which is the hallmark of any corrupt institution.