By now, everyone knows about the School Board’s decision to let go of 10 tenured teachers. TEN. Teachers who have impacted students’ lives, teachers who have gone beyond the call of duty, teachers who have helped change lives are being let go. The Board has its reasons (and I’m positive in the members’ minds it makes sense), but when there are lives at stake and students’ opportunities, the students and community have the right to ask: Why?

Cliff-notes version: According to school board president, Bob Silverman, the primary reason for the restructuring plan is to increase the percent of students who graduate and go to college. In addition, the Board wants save at least a million dollars a year so the OEPP decreases (the amount of money the district spends in total per student including every little thing that doesn’t necessarily impact the student directly).

At a meeting with student government representatives on Wednesday, Feb. 16, Silverman said some of the curriculum of the cut elective courses will be reintegrated into current classes. He also justified the changes to P.E. by saying, “When I looked the requirements I saw that Physical Welfare requires nine semesters whereas you only needed to take six semesters of math, four semesters of science, and eight semesters of English. … What we wanted to do was embed health into the sophomore year to make it an eight-semester course, the state requirement, and open up more space for [students] to have another class.”

So, the Board wants to kill off elective courses (and the teachers who are tied to them) and put more emphasis on core classes (i.e. math and English). All so Niles 219 can be “smarter.” Don’t get me wrong, I understand. I mean it’s required to take four years of gym and only two years of science? Yeah, our state is really fat, but so many people leave high school not ever taking physics. I agree with the board when they say that they want to “improve the core” but that stops when you get to the part where student choice has dwindled and teachers are being laid off. These teachers have changed the lives of students with the work that they teach and the passion they teach it with.

I remember at the board meeting on Monday, Feb. 7, Silverman replied to a student who had pleaded with the members to reconsider their decision to dismiss teachers. Silverman said how he agreed it was terrible and WISHED it could be different. I wish that I could live in a mansion with Patrick Dempsey and have a pony, but that is clearly never going to happen; Silverman has the ability to take action and right this terrible wrong. But he has not.

In response to what happened at the meeting,  junior Jewell Loyd created a Facebook event called “To keep coach LOU METALLO[‘s] JOB.” Metallo, who has been working for the district since 2000, is one of the 10 dismissed teachers. Current students, alumni, and concerned community members (630 of them thus far) have joined to show the School Board these dismissals aren’t going to help anyone.

Senior Nicole Moy wrote on the wall, “alright, as senior class president, im going to take the lead on this one. this facebook group actually can help and improve mr metallo’s chances of keeping his job. If you all could, share a story or incident that mr metallo has impacted you and im going to compile them together and bring them to the school board. but also, the more people we can to get behind mr metallo’s job, the better. also, im going to make an official petition so that everyone can sign. the stundents are the most important part of this school, so we should be the ones making the decisions.”

Freshman Haris Gargovic also wrote, “Mr. Metallo is probably one of the only teachers I’ve had to really care about me and how i do in his class. One weekend he actually called me and took time out of his day to see if i had any questions on the homework and he made sure i knew all the assignments i needed to get done. Any teacher who will call a student on their weekend to make sure he is doing what is supposed to be done doesn’t deserve to lose his job. In his class he would also always talk about his family and how important they were to him and his family doesn’t deserve this either. KEEP METALLO!”

I asked Metallo what his reaction was to the Facebook group, and he replied, “It’s hard for me to express in words. It shows why I became a teacher and what these kids are doing for me makes it all worthwhile. I know things will work out whatever way they end up.” It makes you want to cry when you hear how much he cares for his students and how awful the hand he’s been dealt with is.

To help save Metallo’s job–and the nine other tenured teachers–the Board could look into other ways to accomplish its goals. To lower the OEPP, for example, the District could work on increasing its attendance rate. Niles West and Niles North (compared to their neighbor schools) have a lower average daily attendance rate (93.6%). And a higher attendance rate factors into OEPP statistics.

Face it, many kids hate school. It’s no a secret that we often compare it to a prison. I would spend an entire day sitting in my room doing nothing than going to school. When I was younger, I loved school more than anything in the world. I yearned to learn something new; buying new school supplies was always the highlight of my year.  I was a better Urkel than Urkel was, that’s how much I loved school, but somewhere along the way it was gone. I stopped wanting to be at school to learn; I was really only there because of my electives and after-school activities. Being on the newspaper staff–writing and reporting–is my salvation from this “prison.” Going to C.E.C. Club is what I look forward to all week, not what I’m learning in math.

My advice to the Board, advice I strongly recommend, is to increase the incentive for students to want to learn and come to school. If people love their classes (maybe even Sports Marketing) in high school, they will want to continue their education by going to college. Isn’t that the Board’s number-one goal? Give students leeway, help them find passion in the subjects they’re learning–all subjects, not just those that might raise ACT scores. Letting go of great teachers is not taking any steps forward but 10 giant leaps backwards.