The Alpena Public Schools Board of Education has hired a private investigator to review district administrators’ own investigation into an incident at Ella White Elementary School.

While the news release announcing the hired investigator was scant on details, the investigation appears to involve Ella White Principal Tom Berriman, who’s been on paid administrative leave since Nov. 16, after Berriman in early November controlled a disruptive student by picking the child up and carrying the child to an office. The district’s news release mentions a second incident, but it’s not clear what happened in that incident.

Berriman had previously told The News the board was expected to vote on his termination this week, but that vote was postponed. At Monday’s Board of Education meeting, more than a dozen parents and others spoke in support of Berriman.

We’re glad the board took the step of hiring an outside professional to review its response to the Ella White incidents.

Berriman apparently has the support of a broad swath of the community, and he has been an ardent cheerleader of Alpena Public Schools, its students, and its families. He deserves as thorough a review as can be made before he faces any discipline.

If the review finds district administrators handled their investigation properly and Berriman violated district policy, he’ll deserve some form of discipline — including termination, if that’s what district policy dictates.

But he shouldn’t face that discipline until all of the facts have been established and any mitigating or aggravating circumstances considered.