In the most recent meeting of the Monroe County Board of Education, Board member, Danny Isbill, read a two-page statement in which he accused the media of only reporting the negative as it relates to the county school system and the board. When one considers The Advocate & Democrat to be the largest and oldest media outlet in the county, we conclude Isbill was pointing his finger at us.

In his comments Isbill stated, "It seems that the only items that winds up being reported are those things that might bring a negative outlook to what we do or have done. There is hardly anything mentioned about the good."

With that assumption, we also have to conclude Mr. Isbill does not read the newspaper very well or that he only looks for the negative. The positive is actually what we look for most of the time, and, in fact, what we report, more often than not. The negative usually falls in our laps.

In the last few months we have done stories about the excellent graduation rates, the improvements at Sweetwater High, the in-school bank planning at Sequoyah, Awards days, nine Gold and Silver Awards, the Healthier U.S. School Challenge, the Tiger Games, a competition that squares off all three groups of local high school seniors against each other, Tellico Junior High students dedicating solar panels, the English as a second language program and the list goes on and on.

If the Board has a suit filed against them, we do a story about that too, but for the most part the positive stories far outweigh any negative. If Mr. Isbill has a problem with that math, we suggest he go back to class or, simply, carefully read the Advocate & Democrat.