Letter to the Editor: 'It is obvious that someone in the school system needs to be fired'

My name is Jacob Thomas. I'm writing to express the dismay I felt and my unhappiness with the Brookfield school administrators, after having sat through . As background, I was a coach of Whisconier Middle School MATHCOUNTS team for several years and my teams placed first in the regional and second in the state competitions. Many of the team members moved on to compete in Math League at BHS under the able guidance of Doc, and had great success in regional competitions year after year.

My daughters Veena and Sapana are '13-year members' of the Brookfield school system and were both valedictorians. Both consider themselves to be lucky to be Doc's students and think of him as one of the most influential teachers in their formative years.

Education reformers have pointed out that effective teachers make all the difference in educational outcome. Bill Gates recently said "the single most decisive factor in student achievement is excellent teaching." According to one widely cited 1996 study, if you take an eight-year-old student performing at the 50th percentile and give him a low-performing teacher, he will regress to the 37th percentile in three years. Give him a high-performing teacher, and he will succeed to the 90th percentile in the same amount of time — a swing of 53 percentage points.

Who is a high performing teacher? There may be many definitions, but most students and parents in a school district know who the high performing teachers are. In the case of Brookfield, Doc is one such teacher. One only had to listen to students (both past and present) and parents who spoke at . Over 1,400 have signed a petition supporting him, after it was announced that the Brookfield school administration is moving forward in an attempt to fire him.

During the hearing, . Fourteen of the 18 are more than 10 years old, and many of them sounded trivial. The reasoning of the school officials for the current action is not convincing either. It was obvious that they were mired in nitty gritty and trivial details and had lost sight of the big picture. The molehill of accusations was in stark contrast to the mountain of support garnered by Doc from the students he has inspired in 32 years of teaching as evidenced in the December 15 public hearing and the petition drive. How many other Brookfield teachers can expect that kind of support?

One of the administrators had the audacity, under cross examination, to claim that he had no personal knowledge of teachers using sarcasm with kids.

Contrary to what math department chairman Ed Bednarik, and Principal Bryan Luizzi stated, that they would not allow their children to sit in Doc's class because one wrong word from Doc might hurt them for the rest of their lives, I'm happy that my daughters had Doc as a teacher and they are better for having been in his classroom.

Taxpayers like me are paying the salaries of the school administration. And taxpayers have elected the Board of Education to ensure that the tax money is put to good use to improve the education of our children, and not wasted in legal fees in an attempt to get rid of one of the high performing teachers. Add to this the distraction this incident is causing to students, teachers and parents, and the lowering of the tax payers' faith in the school administration. The bad publicity created can only lower the reputation of the school system and, potentially, property values.

I urge the BOE to consider this matter seriously. How many Brookfield residents have supported the actions by the BHS principal and the superintendent? Will their actions benefit or harm the schools? It is obvious that someone in the school system needs to be fired. And it is not Doc.

Signed

Jacob Thomas