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 The Chronicle welcomes you online! Please feel free to respond to these editorials or letters to the editor by sending your letters to the editor.

We condense letters; most, as published, won't exceed 300 words. A letter must include the writer's name and city, which will be published, and an address and telephone number for verification, which will not be published. Writers may be limited to one letter every 30 days. Open letters, letters to third parties and poetry are not considered. Letters from people living outside the Chronicle's circulation area usually are not considered.

Lauds Burke Co. assistant principal

Web posted June 9, 1999

Editor, The Chronicle:

Just as Dorothy Kernaghan-Baez felt she ``must respond'' to Ann Smith's April 29 letter, I must respond to Ms. Kernahan-Baez's May 12 letter.

From Ms. Kernaghan-Baez's tone, one would think she knows Burke County Assistant Principal Tommy Mitchell personally and was a witness to the paddling. I am very upset someone who does not even know Mr. Mitchell would chance wrongly judging him, but Ms. Kernaghan-Baez did just that.

I work with Mr. Mitchell on a daily basis ... and I would like to give a true account of the person and professional he is. I only hope readers will believe the truth from someone who knows Mr. Mitchell as a wonderful person.

I am not ``anti-parents' rights'' or ``pro-child abuse,'' but I know from daily experience that Mr. Mitchell would never wrong a child. He is the loving father of three children, and treats our kids in the same manner in which he would want his own treated. ... (His) greatest asset to our school is his concern for our children. ... The majority of our kids love Mr. Mitchell. Why? They need the smiles, talks and ``pats on the back'' that Mr. Mitchell constantly offers them.

Mr. Mitchell's primary role, however, is to handle our discipline problems. Of course, he had the alternative to paddling; he could have suspended the child and sent him home for disrupting the class since this was not the child's first office referral. Instead, Mr. Mitchell paddled the child and sent him back for classroom instruction.

Now which punishment was in the best interest of the child? Out-of-school suspension contributes to one of society's most tragic problems now -- too many children in the streets due to lack of discipline. As a result, our society consists of many individuals who have no respect for anyone or anything. Parents who oppose the school's discipline procedures simply enable their children to create problems in school as well as in society.

Ms. Kernaghan-Baez's closing statement read, ``If anyone ever hurt my child in any way, a paddling would seem like a walk on the beach.'' How ironic! She wrote a letter in opposition to what she views as ``abuse'' and closed the letter with an indirect threat of violence. ...

Monika Mobley, Girard