Teacher Fired over Trayvon Martin Fundraiser
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.
Last month Brooke Harris’ eighth-grade class asked her about the “kid who was killed over some skittles;” she