Assistant Principal Dr. Stephanie Spencer was one of the staff rumored to be Connie Stone.
“All I know is that supposedly there was a rumor that I had created a fake Facebook account… and that I had friended students. When I first heard this, I thought, ‘Well, that’s totally absurd’ and just kind of laughed about it, like, that’s ridiculous. So then in talking to students, I found out there was a person named Connie Stone and supposedly this person was a 30-year-old woman who had friended 300-some high school students and early college students– from Vashon. This didn’t make sense to me. I don’t know a whole lot about Facebook,” said Spencer.
After being confused as to why she was the subject of the rumor, Spencer said she got angry then hurt.
“I would never do something like that to begin with; I would never even think to do something like that,” said Spencer.
Spencer said this situation has been very hard on her.
“Last Friday, I was walking through the halls and no students were smiling [at me], they were all glaring, and people called me Connie Stone. At which point I felt it had changed to a harassment issue and I was really hurt by that,” she said.
She said that what she’s taken from this event is the power of rumor. Principal Susan Hanson said that since students first started discussing the anonymous Connie Stone a few weeks ago, parents have emailed her questioning whether she or Spencer had created a Facebook page to spy on students.
“We’ve had KOMO [4] News call. I read a statement to them that said, no, it’s not [true]. They wanted to come out to the school but I said, ‘No. I have school. I have people’s educations to deal with’,” said Hanson.
To deal with this problem, the administration sent out a notification declaring that no one on the VHS administration has a Facebook page, nor were they hiding under the pseudonym of Connie Stone. Spencer said she asked Hanson to send out the notification after the rumor circulated about her being Connie Stone. Despite the difficulties, Hanson found a silver lining in the situation.
“The one positive thing that has come out of this [Connie Stone issue] has been conversations. It’s forced students and staff, students and parents, staff and parents to talk about issues that need to be talked about,” said Hanson.
The one solid thing, however, is this: Connie Stone, whoever she is, was not the one who reported students to the administration.
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The most repeated two words on campus these past two weeks have been “Connie Stone” (or, more recently, “Connie Stoned”). There have been many rumors circulating about who is the face behind this pseudonym, most prominently that it is one of our administrators. As it turns out, however, this rumor doesn’t hold much water. It appears that it is merely an incredible coincidence that Connie Stone arose in our lives the same time as “a concerned parent” reported partying students to the VHS administration. 