Illicit Romantic Affair, Or Over Sensationalized Reporting?

If you are a reader of the New York Daily News, you might have noticed a peculiar trend emerging in their regular coverage: an unending fascination with sex and high schools.

Just last month, we covered such a story, more out of an obsessive tendency towards providing sweeping coverage of all things Sheepshead Bay than for the sort of sensationalism the Daily News is aiming for.

Today, we have a similar story from the News to report, and as it concerns Leon M. Goldstein High School, we still feel obliged to give you a heads up, despite the questionable ethics in such tawdry reportage on display.

The story revolves around a 35-year-old male security guard for Kingsborough Community College who started a relationship with a female student from Leon M. Goldstein High School, which shares the same campus grounds as the college, at 2001 Oriental Boulevard. The guard has since been fired from his post once the mother of the student complained to school officials.

Despite poor judgement on the part of the guard, both parties were of consenting age, and nothing illegal or grossly immoral took place. The guard was an employee of the college, not the high school, and he was not the girl’s teacher or supervisor.

The guard’s firing was based solely on the premise of his behavior being a “bad idea,” and not representative of expected conduct for a school employee.

The Daily News then goes on to tie this story with the one we previously mentioned, concerning  a reassigned Goldstein assistant principal who was accused of having an inappropriately close (albiet non-sexual) friendship with a student.

The dots the Daily News is ostensibly trying to connect, proclaiming Leon M. Goldstein High School as a “hotspot for illicit love affairs,” is both lazy and unfair, especially considering the swift actions taken on part of the school administers in dealing with both matters.