NEW CASTLE, Ind. – In case anyone was wondering, nobody on the New Castle, Indiana school board has horns or carries pitchforks.

And the members don’t seem to be engaged in any sort of “vast left wing conspiracy.”

In fact, at first blush, they seem like thousands of other school board members who serve across America – good people who do a thankless job because they care about children.

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But these good people might miss a great opportunity to make an important point if they let the Mary Jane Dye situation fade away without comment.

Dye is the fifth- and sixth-grade teacher at New Castle’s Wilbur Wright Elementary who stirred up controversy a few weeks ago by sending out a bunch of letters written by her students, addressing several hot button education issues being debated by state lawmakers in Indianapolis.

Oddly, all 19 of the hand-written letters expressed support for Glenda Ritz, the Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, in her ongoing political struggle with Gov. Mike Pence and the majority on the State Board of Education.

The letters also supported several other positions taken by the Indiana State Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union, which also supports Ritz.

None of the children expressed support for the governor or Republicans. None of them, in this Republican-leaning state. Yet Dye wrote in an email that they were in no way coached or influenced.

It’s difficult for reasonable people to believe that.

Since the letters went public, a lot of people have been interested to see how the New Castle school board would react to the possibility of a teacher using small children to make a political statement.

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Unfortunately the members had no reaction at all, at least on Monday night, when they met for their first meeting since the letters were released.

In fact, the issue barely came up at the packed board meeting. Only one person from the audience addressed it when he congratulated the board and other district officials for maintaining their silence about the student letters.

He said to do otherwise would have only given Gov. Pence and his allies more political ammunition to use.

With all due respect, that gentleman couldn’t be more wrong. Taxpayers have a right to know if public school classrooms are being used as political indoctrination centers. The teacher and school administrators should openly and willingly explain what happened, how and why.

After Monday’s meeting, the school board president, Dr. Mark Davisson, politely told EAGnews that he couldn’t comment because Superintendent Steve Fisher is investigating the situation.

Fair enough. But how long will this investigation take? Will we be allowed to know the results?

It’s important that we do.

Davisson told EAGnews that Dye is a good teacher, and he would not want to see this situation somehow drive her from the district.

“It’s not our role as school board members to help you write an editorial about this,” Davisson said. “It could turn into a witch hunt if we let it, and we could potentially lose one of our best teachers, and we don’t want that to happen.

“If that did happen, it would come through a mechanism like this, with you writing an editorial about it.

“Maybe it could have been done differently, maybe it could have been done a little more equitably, nobody can argue with that. But it turned out the way it did, and we still support the process, the superintendent and Mrs. Dye.”

That’s fine. If she is a good teacher – and we trust Davisson on that point – then a single transgression should not result in termination.

But it’s important for the New Castle school board to make a strong statement about the student letters, regardless of whether they eventually determine Dye was guilty of wrongdoing or not.

Their point, which would reverberate statewide, should be this: It is never all right for public school teachers to use their positions to promote their political beliefs, or use kids as political props, regardless of radical rhetoric that encourages them to do so.

It happens too frequently across the nation, usually during teacher union labor disputes. That’s not what teachers are paid to do. It’s a serious offense and cannot be tolerated.

That’s not to say that political issues have no place in the classroom.

In fact, the way we see it, a very good learning opportunity may have been missed in Dye’s classroom during the recent letter-writing exercise.

And some good coaching by the teacher was indeed in order.

If these kids are interested in public affairs, and smart enough to grasp them, which they certainly seem to be, then Dye would have been wise to lead a class discussion on the issues, carefully presenting both sides.

She should have also made sure that every student was exposed to published material addressing various perspectives of the Pence-Ritz debate.

That way they would have learned that in politics, as in all other aspects of life, there are two sides to every issue. It’s their job as responsible citizens to sort out the facts and come to reasonable conclusions on their own.

As it stands, Dye’s fifth- and sixth-graders only learned about one side of Indiana’s education debate. Perhaps it was because they were guided by Dye. At the very least it’s clear that nobody directed them to a good mixture of written material, so they could have researched both points of view.

That’s a terrible shame, a learning opportunity lost.

But some good can still come from this situation if the New Castle school board uses the spotlight to make a critical point to teachers in their district and far beyond:

Make sure political issues are presented to students in a responsible manner, or keep them out of the classroom, period.