Teacher Fired over Trayvon Martin Fundraiser

[proud2BlibKansan]

What do you do with a teacher who provides students with authentic learning opportunities? A teacher who invests her own resources to support students? A teacher who was voted Teacher of the Year two of the last three years?

If you’re Superintendent Jacqueline Cassell at the Pontiac Academy for Excellence Middle School in Pontiac, Mich., you fire her.

When Brooke Harris contacted us last week, her first concern was not her career—it was her students. She worried that she had let them down by not fighting harder for her job. She worried that their essays on Trayvon Martin would no longer be included in the school newspaper. She worried that the superintendent in charge of their education would continue to underestimate them.

We’re worried about Brooke’s students too.

more . . . http://www.tolerance.org/blog/teacher-fired-over-trayvon-martin-fundraiser

[michreject]

1. That's a shame

I know where that school is. I pass it all the time.

It is a charter school. Built new a few years back.

[rhett o rick]

2. I couldnt find an email for the Pontiac Academy for Excellence Middle School. nm

[Sancho]

3. Pontiac Academy's loss is someone else's gain...this teacher will be good for kids!

I hope she moves to Florida.

[knitter4democracy]

8. She might have to move.

Hardly any teaching jobs here in Michigan.

[MagickMuffin]

4. Sign the petition to reinstate Brooke so she can continue to do her job of teaching our children

http://www.change.org/petitions/pontiac-academy-for-excellence-reinstate-brooke-harris


If anyone should be fired it should be the superintendent. What a miscarriage of justice!

[Justice wanted]

5. Pontiac is under one of the Govnernor's Emergency managers So do this Emergency Manager has

any say in the school running...IF so we may know where this stupid firing came from.

[knitter4democracy]

9. Charter school, so it's not under the emergency manager's jurisdiction.

The supt. is in charge through the board, same as a larger school district but just the one school.

[freshwest]

6. Only conservative, corporate values will be taught at charters. I feel bad for those kids.

[knitter4democracy]

7. Yup--teachers in charters are at-will employees here in Michigan.

Even if the charter is managed by a school district and the teachers are union members, there's no tenure, and we're, in all reality, at-will employees. Thanks MI GOP! Grrrr!

I feel bad for her. She did the right thing, handled it properly, and that supt is all about power and control and PR, not actually doing the right thing or educating the students.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Same here

None of our charters are union.