And now a message from the Superintendent: “Please go KILL these people....Please, please, please.”

School Chief’s Embarrassment

Is a Lesson for Itchy E-Mailers

First, let’s make one thing clear. Does the local superintendent of schools want to kill any of her teachers? No, she does not.

In fact, for the most part, residents seem relatively pleased with the performance of the Catskill schools superintendent, Kathleen P. Farrell, who in less than three years has gained a reputation as a can-do presence in a tough job.

That said, any time you generate news with headlines reading “Errant E-Mail Leaves School Chief Mortified/ ‘Kill These People’ Message Prompts Apology, Discipline,” you probably have room for improvement. So in one of those cautionary tales for the Internet age, next time you’re about to send that perfectly succinct nuclear e-mail rocket, consider Dr. Farrell’s travails before hitting the button.

An educator since 1970, Dr. Farrell has built a reputation as a hands-on manager — perhaps too hands-on for some teachers — in Catskill, a town with one foot in new exurban gentrification and the other in old exurban isolation.

One issue that apparently drove her a bit batty was a continuing dispute with teachers over enforcing state fire and safety rules, which require that classroom doors be kept closed while students are in class. With temperatures at times near 90 in a school without air-conditioning, teachers had a habit of propping doors open to cool things down a bit, and wanted to know why bathroom doors could stay open but classroom doors could not.

Back and forth the discussion went, until Oct. 3, when Dr. Farrell wrote an e-mail message to the district’s director of facilities, John Willabay. She vented a bit and then allowed: “Please go KILL these people....Please, please, please.”

Then she sent it — not just to him — but, accidentally, to an unknown number of others as well, including Terri Dubuke, a sixth-grade teacher who was one of the critics. Ms. Dubuke read it in shock and referred it to the teachers’ union, and the matter was discussed at a closed-door school board meeting on Oct. 17.

This week it also found its way into the local press, making Dr. Farrell’s private outburst a very public one. Dr. Farrell, 59, said she had apologized to Ms. Dubuke, and chalked it up to a lapse in judgment and the perils of modern communications.

“I can tell you this is my first experience like this, and it will certainly be my last,” she said. “I responded with a poor choice of language that was inadvertently also received and opened by one staff member. I’ve sent her a letter of apology. If I could eat my left foot, I would.” ...

This from the New York Times.