Up North Progressive

If there’s one thing schools hate, it’s scandal. They will do anything possible to avoid their name in the paper involving any wrong doing, real or perceived; which is why the staff and parents of GTA are probably living a total nightmare right now (and lets face it, have been for years). The Traverse City Record-Eagle has done a good job so far printing softball articles that the Michigan Department of Education nor the Attorney General’s office is not investigating GTA about the millions of dollars of tax payer money Ingersoll and Friends stole and this is just a case of mean people screaming fire at a tiny wisp of smoke. The only guilty party’s in prison now. Nothing to see here, every thing’s fine.

Can you imagine the front page headlines if this three-ring circus of a financial scandal happened with Traverse City Area Public Schools?

One GTA-related story the Record-Eagle hasn’t printed is the already-happened-but-no-one’s-supposed-to-know-about-it-yet resignation of Brooke Capser, former Principal of GTA. She has a new job in her home state of Montana as Principal of Lowell School in Missoula. You can see her name here on the Principals Message page on the school website:

And here she is listed in the staff directory on the same website:

By now you’ve probably mashed that link and seen this:

And you’re about to say, “Hey, wait a minute – according to the school’s website, this Brian Bessette guy is the principal, not Brooke Capser! Brooke Capser is even listed on GTA’s Leaders website right now!”

And you would be right. So let’s do some internet detective work. Open up your favorite search engine and type in, “Brooke Capser Lowell School

The top two search hits are the Lowell School Principals Message page and the school directory, both showing Brooke Capser’s name in bold. Click on the little green arrow next to the link and you will see a cached archive of the page. On May 27th, 2017, Those pages with Brooke Capser’s name were live on the Lowell School website.

So what happened? Grand Traverse Academy happened. They don’t want anyone to know Brooke Capser no longer works for them because some rats know when it’s time to flee the sinking ship. Of course, all the smoke and mirrors surrounding Brooke Capser’s change of career leads to the next question – why is it so important for GTA to conceal that Brooke Capser has a new job?

Remember staff, parents, and students of Grand Traverse Academy, make sure to wish your former principal good luck at her new school in Montana. Tomorrow is your last day with Mrs Capser and you will have a new principal next fall. Won’t that be exciting!