Levchuk says misbehavior trickling down to children
OCEAN CITY — City Councilman Jody Levchuk said enough is enough already, calling for an end to social media attacks on members of the community and school district.
“I’m a lot disappointed in some of the back and forth that I see going on in our community with some of our school” social media pages, Levchuk said Nov. 22. “It’s not our job as City Council or mayor to involve ourselves in school board decisions, but I feel a moral obligation to have to say something.”
Mayor Jay Gillian agreed, saying social media is harming people’s mental health. He also said it makes it too easy for people to target the families of public figures, whether on City Council or the Board of Education.
“My recommendation is to stop going on social media,” Gillian said. “There’s a minority of people on social media that think they’re experts with opinions and it drives me crazy that they believe in something and they think it’s so important to get their opinion out,” the mayor said.
But Robin Shaffer, a Board of Education member endorsed by the outside group Moms for Liberty who recently lost re-election, said City Council is fanning the flames of conflict.
“Ocean City is not America’s Greatest Family Resort when you have the kind of hate that has been directed at me and my family during this campaign, directed at public servants like Liz Niocletti and Catherine Panico,” Shaffer said. “It is not right and people in this room have helped to promulgate this hate, people in this room have called me anti-gay behind my back to friends of mine.”
Some of the back and forth online to which Levchuk was referring arose from the sale of a graphic novel and other books sold during a book fair at Ocean City Intermediate School, which educates students in grades four through eight.
Several parents complained to the Board of Education on Nov. 17 about “pornography” and “pedophilia” in the graphic novel “Heartstoppers.”
Kevin Schaffer, a member of the “Conservative Family Values” ticket that recently lost in the school board race, expressed outrage over the incident.
“I am hear to talk about a book, a graphic novel, which is a story told through illustrations. In this case it’s pornography and it’s pedophilia,” Schaffer said. “I’m pretty sure when a fourth-grader looks at a man kissing a boy, it’s probably not a good thing.”
After the school district was made aware of the content of the book, officials sent out a mass email informing parents of the situation.
Interim Superintendent Scott McCartney said steps are being taken to ensure the situation does not happen again.
“We try to be proactive, but with tens of thousands of resources that come in the school door and into the classroom, there’s bound to be a place when something happens that is inappropriate. When that happens, my job is to be reactive and keep it from happening again,” McCartney said.
Levchuk said people are entitled to their opinions but should stop short of impugning others’ character.
“I just don’t think that in any community, this community in particular, there is any room for a mother of children or father of children being trashed all over our social media for talking about an opinion that they have,” he said. “All of us that are at this table and others in this room that were elected officials and administrators to the city — and many of us, most of us at this table, have children in the school system — we have a moral obligation to be the leaders that we are and put an end to this. There should not be any trashing of any parents on a school web page.”
The councilman said adults should be modeling good behavior and when they do not, children see it and start behaving badly.
“It is very upsetting to see, it’s even more upsetting to get phone calls about this from parents of kids in the school system, hearing that this type of talk is trickling its way into the school system to our innocent kids that are there,” Levchuk said. “And it’s creating hatred between kids, it’s creating problems between kids and it’s unacceptable to me.”
He asked that those responsible stop doing it.
“I ask that all parents, no matter which side of the fence you are on on the issue that seems to be getting everybody crazy on social media right now, I ask that you please don’t do it anymore,” Levchuk said.
He said people should stick to their own page and post whatever they want but “don’t go on a school discussion page and trash any of your peers. It’s unacceptable to me and I hope to not see it anymore.”
Gillian agreed with Levchuk.
“I am as disgusted as you are. We need to stay off social media. We need to teach the kids that social media is not the truth, it’s opinions and you’ve got to be careful,” he said.
Shaffer addressed Gillian’s comments.
“It’s ironic to hear the mayor talk about the pitfalls of social media when he was all over social media campaigning against our ticket and for our opposition’s,” Shaffer said, noting city solicitor Dottie McCrosson served as treasurer of the opposition ticket and is law partners with school board solicitor Michael Stainton.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff