Nobody has said that that wasn’t one of the reasons he got fired.

As far as “second-hand source”, the only two primary sources for the call between the substitute teacher and his supervisor are the two of them (unless the line was tapped or one of them was recording it or on a speaker phone.) The *reporter* was the second-hand source. It sounds like the reporter messed up badly by not getting both sides (though Sinclair might have declined to comment or referred all questions to higher ups.) If Sinclair fails to actually deny making the comment about the wizardry complaint, and Piculas doesn’t claim to have been misquoted, then all the evidence we have is that Sinclair said it. Has either of these occurred? (It doesn’t matter whether or not there actually was a complaint, only that Sinclair told Piculas that there was one.)

All the other quotes I’ve seen sound like classic Watergate non-denial denials.

In a not unkind support of public school superintendents in general: they’re usually elected within their city or county school districts, are not directly professionally involved in education, and are generally unpaid, apart from meager stipends to cover travel or other small expenses. Most of them are genuinely concerned about how the schools are faring, but some are axe-grinders with specific and often controversial agendas of their own: the teaching of X in the classroom, salaries – nearly always too high – paid to teachers or administrators, or the “waste” of taxpayer’s money, or merely as a forum to get themselves publicly noticed, for example. Most of the folks I’ve run across in my experience have been not so awful; they ran for office generally because they saw the district’s need in one area of another and thought they might be able to help. I have seen a few who were totally at odds with the schools and the folks who ran them, however. But for the most part, these types don’t appear very often, and when they do they’re so obviously there to cause problems for everyone that they’re gone by the next term, with sorrowful goodbyes from the voters, one and all.

“You really can’t count on every Web site … because you’re likely to get information that isn’t true,” she said.
Gee, ya think?

“There’s a Persian drink (the name escapes me at the moment) that’s vinegar based.”

Sekanjabin, also a few drops of balsamic vinegar with strawberries, a dash of white vinegar in caramel to impede crystallisation, and so on…

The superintendent is quoted in the second article saying that wizardry was not a reason he was let go (though she uses a litoses : "There were several compelling reasons for the dismissal, none of which were even remotely related to ‘Wizardry,’ as was suggested in the news accounts,” she wrote."

However, where did the superintendent get her information? From Piculas, or the principal? I can guess.

At some level, a situation like this becomes he-said-she-said. Without a recording, or a document, that’s likely all we’ll ever get.

FWIW, I wait at least a couple days and see how other reports come in on any unusual story. Even the usual ones.

The prime example I use is how everyone knows how outside the John Benet Ramsey house, on the night of the murder, there was fresh snow with no footprints! Very incriminating! Couldn’t have been an intruder! It was reported over and over nationally.

There was little to no snow on the ground. Archival video footage from that night clearly shows it. The shots of the Ramsey house show a lawn clear of snow.

But everyone *knew* it. People *still* use it in arguing over the case. It was reported as quotes from “investigators”.

“If your quotes are acurate”

Very fair. Here, check for yourself:
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/may/06/pa-presto-teacher-out-of-a-job/

“to me it appears as if Sinclair was talking about the complaint itself.”

The question isn’t so much if Sinclair was talking about the complaint as it is if Sinclair even said that at all. The key part here is this:
>He asked what she meant.
>”She said, ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’
>” Piculas said.

Piculas said. So, it’s second hand information from Piculas. And who is he? The guy who was let go; i.e., a biased source.

This doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but it’s very believable that it didn’t. Piculas has both the opportunity and the motive to lie, and his reputation is… well, zilch. He’s just a random internet guy. You honestly have just as much reason to believe he would be giving an accurate quote as you do I would (I would say even less, since he’s biased, but I suppose you could reasonably interpret my defending my points as a bias).

Actually, if your quotes are acurate, to me it appears as if Sinclair was talking about the complaint itself. A complaint registered from a 3rd party in which the 3rd party accused Piculas of Wizardry. Neither Sinclair nor Piculas used the term wizardry in the first person.

So on the surface, what we potentially have is a students parent who doesn’t like magic tricks. Now I wonder what kind of person doesn’t like magic tricks…

Let me get this straight. You’re asking for whose fault it is that you believe something without checking your facts… then you’re coming to the conclusion that it’s those damned Floridians?

Damn those Floridians!

It would also seem fitting to take much of the incredulity expressed in the original topic on the subject and simply redirect it at the reporter.

It is clear that the reporter did NOT do that.

In retrospect, we can say that the BA should have looked for signs of good reporting before posting the information the the blog. But the truth is that ALL of us want (and need) to trust the media.

Poor reporting is becoming very common. “Reporting” that is thinly disguised sensationalism and entertainment is rapidly becoming the usual thing.

I suggest that instead of writing to the school, we should write to channel 10, and other “news” outlets that provide crap instead of news. We should tell them that we want news, not entertainment, and we won’t buy their paper or watch their show until they provide quality, well researched, intelligent news.

“yy2bgggs, it seemed reasonable to me that a television reporter *who had quotations from the source* would have an accurate report.”

But that’s the thing. The reporter did NOT have quotations from the source about the wizardry claim. From the Tampa Tribune reporting:

>The telephone call that spelled the end of Jim Piculas’ career as a
>substitute teacher in Pasco County came on a January day about a
>week after he performed the disappearing-toothpick trick for a group
>of rapt middle school students.

>Pat Sinclair, who oversees substitute teachers in the Pasco County
>School District, was on the phone. She told Piculas there had been
>a complaint about his performance at Rushe Middle School in Land
>O’ Lakes.

>He asked what she meant.

>”She said, ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’

>” Piculas said.

This is the only place where an actual accusation of wizardry comes from in the story (from the internet), and though it appears that Pat Sinclair said it when reading, you see that the source of information here is NOT Pat Sinclair, but Piculas himself. Everything else said about wizardry comes from Piculas.

To me this raises some serious questions about veracity. I’m not saying it wasn’t true, but there’s no evidence I have outside of such second-hand reporting from a let go employee that a supernatural belief in wizardry had anything to do with it (and I still don’t see the evidence, though I admit I could just be missing something).

I do see some suggestion that the magic tricks had something to do with it, but I suppose I have a bigger imagination into possible reasons why it was deemed inappropriate.

If he actually was accused of wizardry, then the district still deserves ridicule, regardless of whether or not that accusation had any weight in the decision to fire him.

People in the general populace who think they are in the right will rarely listen to reason.

yy2bgggs, it seemed reasonable to me that a television reporter *who had quotations from the source* would have an accurate report. And I was careful to say that the wizardry was *one* reason he was let go. At some point you have to decide if something is worth reporting or not, and this one seemed to be at the time. Honestly, it still does, since it still seems to be that one reason he was let go was due to accusations of wizardry.