"It's devastating," said school board member Jerome Summers. "Nobody anticipates the death of their child when they send their kid to school."

If I was the reporter, I would have then asked "Under what circumstances should a parent anticipate the death of their child?  Sending them off to war?  Packing their lunch box for the field trip to the munitions factory? When would the death of a child NOT be devastating?"

I'm starting a new feature on this blog - "If I was the reporter..."   This one comes from a an AP article on the death of a 10-year-old boy at a Chicago area school.  The child was found hanging from a hook in a bathroom.  School board member Jerome Summers obviously got elected because of his critical thinking skills and ability to belittle tragedy in just 16 words.

Some more nuggets:

Counselors were meeting with students and parents Wednesday.

Maybe the counselors should be meeting with school board officials...

Several parents who attended a school meeting Wednesday who would not give their names said school officials provided little information about the death; others said school officials instructed them to avoid talking to the media.

Yes, the parents should avoid talking to the media, that's the job of school board officials with media relations experience.

I came home from fourth grade once frightened  that the lunch lady was going to come for me and serve sauerkraut to me again.  What's so difficult to understand here anyway?  Every fourth-grader knows that bullies hang out in the bathroom.  Maybe the lesson of not  wear loose fitting clothing if your bathrooms have hooks doesn't sink in until fifth grade.

Summers, the finance chairman of the board has always used an economy of words and simple prose to get his point, such as in 2006:


The obvious-speak isn't limited to Summers though, the entire school board simplifies thing with this report with the dumbed-down title "The ABC's of School Funding (PDF)"

The topic of the report?  Unbalanced budgets.  Keep up the good work Jerome!