Talk:St. Joseph's Preparatory School

Latest comment: 5 years ago by BillFlis in topic Names

Alexander Haig edit

both lower merion hs and st joes has Alexander Haig listed as an alum. you need a citation. or you need to fight it out with lower merion. until this happens i am removing Alexander Haig.

Fair Enough, Discuss away...

I believe Haig is listed as having attended SJP and graduated Lower Merion. Simple attendance meets the qualification of being an Alum. Ar-wiki 21:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Ginn Incident edit

I added two paragraphs: one on the Ginn incident, and one about Clifford's departure and Gomez's arrival. If you plan on deleting and/or modifying either section, please mention it here in the discussion section. --John 01:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

uh nice job deleting the super-important ginn stuff. gg

The "Ginn incident" absolutely does NOT belong on this summary page about St. Joseph's Prep. If we listed every scandal OR accomplishment on each school's page, the pages would be neverending. The point of this article is to give people a general idea of the school. The same goes for the information about Clifford.

The Ginn Incident is relevant for two reasons 1. It is a sexual abuse scandal. Faculty Members lost their jobs over it. Kids were sexually molested (arguably). Thats really relevant to the history of the school. if you think its too long then shorten it, but dont delete it. The point is, its not a minor incident like the changing of a dress code or instituting a morning prayer. Its kids that were sexually molested 2. The event has sources and citatins, it is not unfactual or coming out of the blue. it really did happen and there is factual sources to cooroborate that.Brett 21:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

There is no reason to include Father Clifford's stepping down. It has no relevance to this article, and especially no relevance to the "Sex Abuse Scandal" section where it is located.

  1. Fair ENough, I changed it to just include Father Clifford stepping down, but cut the rest of the paragraph out. It doesnt make conclusions or anything like that. Also, please sign your comments are per wikipedias policy Brett 00:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
    1. Why does everyone keep changing the article? You all have not responded here even once, check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes for more info Brett 05:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Mr. Ginn was not accused of "sexually molesting" anyone -- there were accusations of "inappropriate hugging." Again, this does NOT belong on a summary page of a school. And Father Clifford's resignation had absolutely nothing to do with that incident.

  1. He left because of it, how is that not relevant?
  2. Furthermore, get your facts straight, it was not "hugging," it was "kissing," as you can see from the news article you removed, "A beloved teacher has resigned in a sex abuse scandal rocking a North Philadelphia school....Ginn was reprimanded then for allegedly kissing two boys."
  3. Even then, it passes the litmus test for an encyclopedic section - it includes the history, which is verifiable, of a school that had a major nationally known issue. Anytime something like that happens, where a teacher is accused of kissing a student, it is worthy of being featured on a schools website. Are you saying that inappropriate contact between teachers and students is unencyclopedic?Brett 05:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Don't touch another school's page unless you are an expert in that school's dealings. You have no formal connections with the school, except for what you read on some website. And we all know everything we read in the media is absolutely 100% accurate, right?

  1. Do I not have the right to edit public domain?

I would consider specific allegations on anything to be "unencyclopedic." An encyclopedia, by definition, is a collection of GENERAL information about various topics. If we were writing an exhaustive history of St. Joseph's Prep here, this "incident" would be relevant. However, because it is an "encyclopedia" entry, this information is IRRELEVANT to the general summary about St. Joseph's Prep.

Furthermore, you can edit all you want, but other people -- particularly those who have real connections with the school -- reserve the right to reverse your edits.

  1. Again, recent events that are of interest to the public (and again i would argue a sexual abuse scandal is of relevance to the public) also pass Wikipedia's litmus test for an encyclopediac entry

Is there evidence that indicates that this issue was "nationally known"? The only reference given is to a local news station. I think it's fair to say the issue of abuse in general was national news at that time, but not specifically this incident. Ar-wiki 21:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Someone replaced the Ginn section with a hate message, which I deleted. However, I don't think the Ginn incident should be mentioned at all there because (goes with some stuff stated here before, but): 1) Not national news 2) This page should only have general information about the school. 3) This page should not have every event in its history included on this page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Njgatto (talkcontribs) 13:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC).Reply

I tend to agree that the issue does not necessarily belong in article. Certainly this was not national news, but the article does not need to be limited to a description for the school. A somewhat analogous case is where Penn has a controversy section. These events are no doubt embarrassing for the school, but since they garnered significant attention, they have found a place on that page. Those also involved actual charges and possible court cases. In this case, the only cited information is that a teacher resigned over a decade old claim, and subsequently an audit was ordered.

A somewhat troubling feeling I have with this issue is that some of the edits seems based in a school rivalry. Fish114 is/was a student at La Salle College High School which has a well known rivalry with SJP. Comments such as "Would you send your kids to a school that employed a teacher accused of kissing children?" , don't strike me as being of a neutral POV.
Ar-wiki 21:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

That is terrible that this school would hire someone like this, just terrible.Freewilly2009 00:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

More Stuff edit

Considering that this is a Jesuit institution and that only a small handful of students actually go to Ivy League schools every year (except the constant Penn crowd) I think that Fordham and Penn State (two huge matriculant schools) should be added.

I agree and have added these schools. I don't believe there is any harm in this change as both institutions are well known on the national level and do accept a good deal of SJP students. Bmurphy (talk) 13:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Someone deleted the Fordham add, and I readded it. Not sure that Penn State should be added.

Alumni edit

Please mention

Al Haig

Jim McKay

And I believe that there are seven current Bishops from the PREP

Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D., was appointed Acting Commissioner of the FDA, in September 2005.

JLG '76

Alexander Haig went to Lower Merion.


Might want to add Reggie Redding '06 - currently at Villanova playing basketball, got a lot of press coverage during the NCAA tournament TiresiasTaleisin (talk) 04:19, 21 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

Cleanup and other issues edit

From the talk page here, I see some previous attempts to claim ownership of the article. Anyone may edit any page here, please do not attempt to tell any editor otherwise. That being said, this "Ginn incident" is sourced and most certainly is relevant to the school's article as a major event in its history. The introduction also needs some ad cleanup, I'll work on that as I have time to do so, right now it's written like a promo piece. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 01:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Seraphimblade, Thank you for your guidance. You make some very good points here. It is not uncommon for alumni to be passionately proud and defensive of their alma mater. Many alumni of this school are naturally inclined to take exception to inclusion of the "Ginn incident" as a "major event" to the history of the school. But you are correct that, like it or not, it is a verifiable fact and a part of its history. Conflicting opinions of its inclusion will likely persist until those in discord pass on or give up. I think the lesson here is not to fight such facts with an eraser but with the pen to depict the event accurately. In addition, readers are encouraged to bring forth other major events of the history of the school. The article as it is today, is relatively barren of the many positive contributions the school and its alumni have made to the world. As long as contributors keep their personal agenda and biases in check and focus on sharing verifiable facts, a more complete and balanced encyclopaedic article will emerge. And you are correct that the Introduction as it exists today, has been over-editted and is now sloppy. Maybe a Prep freshman English scholar will help all of us "Rockheads" out here. --YouRockhead 06:54, 10 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Please don't misunderstand me, those with personal knowledge of a subject are highly welcome to edit it! It's just important to remember to stay to sourced information, since our own personal knowledge of something can easily lead to original research. If you can find reliable sources with great things to say, by all means, add them in! It's to no one's benefit to exclude well-sourced information or to have a piece that's more negative than warranted based on source coverage. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 20:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Recently Added edit

I just added a fair amount of information on the Prep. Everything was taken from the SJP website and is therefore verifiable and true. I agreed that there was not enough positive information on the page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Myerscw (talkcontribs) 04:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC).Reply

Ad cleanup/NPOV edit

I've just removed quite a bit of puff/advertising tone material from the article. Please remember that material should be written in a neutral tone, and any direct quotes should be placed in quotation marks and attributed. It is plagiarism to directly copy a quote without quoting and attributing it. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 22:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I just added a source for academics. -myerscw

Campaign edit

Something should be added about the campaign. http://campaign.sjprep.org/

added campaign info, feel free to edit it a bit

Njgatto 02:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)Reply


Why did someone remove the information in this section?? This is an ongoing current event that includes a significant expansion to the school's campus. If we're going to keep the Ginn information on here that is two years old, or the line about the process of mission renewal that began in the summer of 2006, why shouldn't this information be there? Bmurphy (talk) 14:11, 28 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, I agree about the Ginn section (see below). Anyway, the removal of the Campaign section looks like it was vandalism [1]. The same guy that removed it then added "Jordan Edwards-Currently best freshman ever". Ar-wiki (talk) 04:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Semi-protection edit

Due to continuous vandalism by anon editors, this article has been temporarily semi-protected. If you have questions, reasons why this should be lifted earlier, please contact me. — ERcheck (talk) 00:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

This semi-protection status should either be in place permanently or have an expiration date further in the future. You can see that within 10 days of its expiration the vandalism began again. Bmurphy (talk) 14:07, 28 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Re-opening discussion of Ginn content edit

I'd like to (re)start some discussion on the relevance of the "Sexual Abuse Scandal" section of the article. Consider the relative age of the events in question, the actual allegations being 11 years old and the dismissal being 2 years old. Does this section of the article begin to fall under WP:Notability#TEMP? Considering no charges were ever filed and these events occurred in the wake of the larger Roman Catholic sex abuse cases, do these events still meet the criteria for notability, specifically in this article? Did these specific events ever actually meet criteria for "Significant Coverage" and # of "Sources" under WP:Notability#General_notability_guideline? Note that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia has no section dealing with abuse, even though there are far more sources dealing with similar cases in that instance. Is it time to remove this section? Ar-wiki (talk) 22:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

I see some more edit warring going on regarding the "Sexual Abuse Scandal" section. Please respond via the talk page here if you have anything to say on the matter. If no one cares enough to discuss this, it is hard to make much of an argument that it is worth keeping at this point. Ar-wiki (talk) 06:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Alumni edit

Notice that I will be cleaning up all alumni who do not have a Wikipedia page if: 1) there is not a reliable citation demonstrating notability AND 2) there is not a citation demonstrating attendance at SJ Prep.

Please add this info for those alumni that should be kept. Cheers, ForgottenManC (talk) 03:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

Edgely edit

I have removed content describing off-campus activities. As this content was not school related I believe an extrordinary case would have to be made for inclusion. Tiderolls 00:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

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Names edit

In the 1950s, its name was St. Joseph's College High School. I think that and any other names should appear in the history. BillFlis (talk) 08:33, 25 June 2018 (UTC)Reply