Mason Fullerton '25
Part of what makes Abington Friends special is not just the exceptional arts, diverse student body, or our collaborative instead of competitive culture. It’s the relationships between faculty and students. Trust is essential to the high spirit and wellbeing of the student body. After all, there are reasons there aren’t locks on our lockers or we call higher ups by their first name.
As a Quaker institution, Abington Friends puts trust and equity at the forefront of education. AFS has prioritized students of all learning abilities to be able to come together, opposed to being excluded.
On September 12, 2024, in an unfortunate incident, confidential information regarding student accommodations was emailed to the entire Upper School at the end of the day. Students and parents expressed their disturbance, as an email that was just supposed to be sent to teachers was in the hands of the entire upper school.
One student that was affected by the email said… “I was very surprised. I know it wasn’t on purpose, but I didn’t know what to think.”
Another student said, “Initially, I was worried about what this would do for my future as someone with accommodations…because now everyone has this information, and I felt this was a total breach of trust.”
When asked what they want to see more of in the future the same student said, “Acknowledgement of how it made people on that list feel. I feel the acknowledgement that they had was ‘well everyone makes mistakes,’ but this mistake hurt a lot of people.”
In the midst of uncertainty, AFS Upper School Director Brendon Jobs sent an email to parents and students regarding the accident. He addressed that the school would be finding solutions to distributing confidential information so that an incident like this wouldn’t happen again.
As a point of reassurance, Jobs said, “Protecting your child’s privacy and fostering a safe and inclusive environment are always our responsibility, and we are taking this situation very seriously.”
Following the email, during morning assembly, Jobs addressed and proposed the solution Upper School administration came up with, saying confidential information such as accommodations are to be sent through Blackbaud, and not the Upper School email that is more prone to accidents.
In that assembly, Jobs also affirmed that students who took pictures of the accommodation list out of harmful intent, needed to embody the stewardship guidelines and delete those photos immediately.
Following up on the School’s response, Mikael Yisrael, director of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ), said, “There are a lot of conversations that are taking place, and have been taking place, but more so we are getting to a spot where whenever there’s a moment, how you respond to that moment is important…it should be used as an opportunity to grow and change and this is a situation that I’m seeing that happen.”
Yisrael said, “If something is a mistake, understood, we’re all human, the goal is not to make the same mistake again.. When these situations arise you have to talk about it, you have to take ownership.”
The school’s response to this event was admirable. We are still working on rebuilding any trust lost in the community, but so far the work being done has been received well.
Confidentiality is incredibly important, but the truth is that no institution is perfect. When mistakes happen, it is the responsibility of the school to learn from it, as our school has in this case.
The new system regarding sensitive information and the restructuring of who has access to such information is evidence that the Abington Friends administration understood the severity of the situation.
Nothing can be undone, but work was done to ensure that a similar situation is unlikely to occur again, and the school is still working to rebuild any of the trust that was lost during this time.
AFS is a school that is built upon trust, and therefore the ability to uphold that trust is essential to the success of the spirit of community all across the school.