Updated: Tribunal Rules Against 'Doc' Wollkind; Math Teacher Considering Retiring

Following the release of a report from a three-member panel recommending his termination, 32-year Brookfield High School (BHS) math teacher Robert “Doc” Wollkind said he “is leaning towards” retiring before the Board of Education (BOE) takes action on the findings.

Wollkind, who received considerable support from students, parents and alumni since he went on administrative leave last November, said in a phone interview Wednesday that his attorney, Randall DiBella of New Milford, told him the report, which arrived that day, indicated that the panel had “voted against me” and found that he had committed “insubordination.”

“They claim that the recent incidents were not the determining factor, but that it was my overall personnel file, which has been sitting there forever,” he said.

Hartford attorney Patrick McHale said at that all but one of the superintendents that had served during Wollkind’s tenure had placed reprimands into his personnel file.

“The only superintendent I ever got along with was John Goetz,” Wollkind said, referring to the head of the school system from 2003 to 2007.

“Administrators have gone after me because I alienated them,” he said.

New Milford attorney Randall DiBella, who represented Wollkind during the four hearings that were held earlier this year, said he is “exploring options” in regard to the findings from the impartial tribunal.

He said that one of the three members of the panel, John Gesmonde, who had been selected by the Wollkind defense team, wrote a long dissenting brief to the majority brief from M. Jackson Webber and John Romanow, the other members of the panel.

Gesmonde stated that there was a “failure” in the majority opinion “to take into account the importance of Dr. Wollkind suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder.”

He stated that people with Asperger’s “have extreme difficulty in social skills.”

“Dr. Wollkind has been found to be an efficient, competent, moral and able teacher and one who has never previously been found to have been insubordinate for breaching board policy,” Gesmonde wrote.

More than 1,000 people signed an online petition last December in support of Wollkind after they learned that he had been .

In one case, he reportedly asked a student if he had eaten “his homework.”

, and then-math chairman Ed Bednarik, , testified before the impartial tribunal that they had encountered complaints from students and parents about Wollkind and that he didn’t follow-up on requests, for example, from students who needed materials when they were absent from school for long periods of time.

Superintendent Anthony Bivona testified that there had been questions in the early 1980s about granting Wollkind tenure in the district.

Some students, former colleagues and alumni testified on Wollkind’s behalf, saying that he had been instrumental in helping students master the math skills that they would need in college and that he had been successful for many years in coaching the school’s Math League team.

BOE Vice Chairman Rob Gianazza said Wednesday he had not seen the report and declined comment.

BOE members have refrained from commenting on the case since they will have to make the final decision on Wollkind’s status based on the report from the impartial tribunal.

DiBella said that the next step for the BOE would be to caucus with a special attorney to act on Bivona’s recommendation to terminate Wollkind’s contract.

He said the report from the impartial tribunal would be part of the information used to make that decision.

Staff members at the Town School Office said Wednesday afternoon that their copy of the report had not arrived yet.

Wollkind said despite the call for his termination, he has found his career at BHS to have largely been a source of enjoyment.

“I always knew I had a lot of support,” he said when asked about the comments that students and parents have made over the recent months in his behalf.

“However, I always knew this could happen,” Wollkind said regarding the recommendation of termination.

He said regardless of the outcome in Brookfield he planned to continue teaching math part-time at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury.

“They like me there,” Wollkind said.