The Mayor Who Disappeared

The USA Today is running an article entitled, "Mayor of Atlantic City Goes AWOL; Wife Says He's Sick." The article begins, "The mayor of Atlantic City, N.J., vanished last week. Officials say Mayor Robert Levy is 'absent on temporary medical leave,' but won't share any details about his hospitalization with the public or press." The article reports, "Domenic Cappella, the city's business administrator who claims to be acting mayor, says he knows where Levy is, but lawyers have advised him that a federal privacy law bars him from sharing that information with the public. (That's not true, according to legal experts. We have requested comment from Kimberly Baldwin, the city's lawyer, about her interpretation of the HIPAA statute, which appears to govern medical and insurance providers, not employers.)

Read the Article!!

Discussion Starters for Younger Children

• Do your students think that it's OK to keep some things private between only them and their parents? Why/why not? What kinds of things might people want to keep private?
  
• Consider asking students to write one or two sentences about something which they are thinking. Remind students that their inner voice is the most important voice in the world to them. Remind them that they are special.
  
• Do students think that it would be OK if the principal of the school decided not to come to school one day? Why/why not? If the principal could not come to school should he/she tell somebody? Who do students think the principal should tell? Why do they think he/she should tell this person?
  
• Students might make get well cards for a student or teacher who is sick.
  
• Ask students if they were ever uncertain as to where their parents/babysitter/older sibling was and therefore felt alone. How did it feel to be alone? Why did it feel this way? Where did the person turn out to be?
  
• Consider asking students to develop skits describing what it might feel like to be home alone. What could students do so that they did not become afraid?
  
• Ask students if they've ever gotten in trouble for doing something that they did not even know was wrong to do. What did they get in trouble for? Have students ever not done something because they thought that it would be breaking a rule only to find out that they were allowed to do this thing? What was the behavior? Why might somebody not correctly know what all the rules are?
  
• Students might select classroom rules and draw pictures that explain what the rules say somebody should or should not do.
  

Discussion Starters for Older Students

• Vocabulary terms to discuss: AWOL; Ordinances; Expose; and, Revelations.
  
• Ask your students to imagine that they were friends with Domenic Cappella, Atlantic City's business administrator. Would they reveal where the mayor was? Why/why not? Imagine that the entire city council asked him to do so. Should he then reveal it? Why/why not?
  
• Students might respond to these questions in persuasive essays directed towards Mr. Cappella.
  
• Do students think it's reasonable to wait 60 days before Atlantic City can officially select an acting mayor? Why/why not? Imagine that the President of the United States could not be found for over a week. How do students think that the country would respond?
  
• These questions might promote an interesting class discussion.
  
• Do students think that this story should be covered in a national newspaper? Why/why not? What does it mean for something to be national news?
  
• Students might define national news in groups of three or four and then report back to the class. The entire class might then attempt to develop a definition by consensus.