Surprise rippled through the community this week as Mid-Carolina High baseball coach Clyde Livingston was put on administrative leave. Surprise rippled, but no official explanation was forthcoming. Then yesterday, Livingston resigned. But the school district would be doing the community a disservice if his resignation is the last we hear of this matter.

Although it is indeed a “personnel matter” as the district says, the personnel in question was, in essence, a public employee paid by the taxpayers.

It should be a public matter. South Carolina’s Freedom of Information law provides secrecy protection for government employers in matters of personnel. However, it is left up to the employers, the people “in the know” to determine when that veil of secrecy is to be pulled. If that protection is consistently used as a blanket to hide all administrative actions involving personnel, the spirit of the law is not being served, and neither is the public.