The following in an announcement of intention to seek public office paid for by the candidate.
I am Alan Bhajan and this year as a science teacher at Bradford Middle School, I helped the eighth-grade students achieve the best scores Bradford County has seen in more than a decade in the Florida state science exams.
I am an accomplished and experienced educator with a twenty-five-year career serving students in Guyana, South America, Colorado and in the last two years, at Bradford Middle School. In the span of my career, I have been a classroom teacher, a college lecturer, the principal of a college and an education officer/school superintendent.
My core philosophy of teaching is that given a safe and conducive learning environment and with compassionate but disciplined quality teaching, each child can achieve excellence and maximize their greatest potential. In short, I believe in each child and teach them to believe in themselves and work hard to achieve academic and life goals. The last batch of eighth-graders at BMS bore fruit to my philosophy and work.
During my stint at BMS, it became evident that after successive years of failure, the school was in danger of entering a “turnaround” phase. With frequent visits from state officials, local school leaders made interventions to mitigate failure and avoid impending “turnaround” status. However, these interventions showed a lack of sound educational acumen and a concern more for numerical outcomes than delivering a sound education to the students.
Decisions to curtail the full delivery of the curriculum to some students, among other bizarre interventions, were ill-informed, ill-advised and disadvantaged some students. Despite the challenges posed by an administration getting vacuous leadership from their supervisors, my students proved that with disciplined learning, Bradford students are right up there with the very best!
Another observation that gives grave concern for the welfare and education of our children is the apparent movement of Bradford Schools from a K-6 to a K-8 configuration. This will lead to the closure of all except one elementary school together with the closure of the middle school and moving to an amalgamation of elementary and middle school students in one facility. Research data shows a K-8 configuration has zero long-term gains for students but creates major negative implications for their safety and education.
If my perception is wrong, I challenge my fellow candidates to publicly declare that they will not close any more elementary schools nor the middle school. Parents of Bradford County deserve the right to know of plans that will affect their children and the Bradford community, so that they can make an informed decision at the ballot box. We need to do what is best for our kids, not what is expedient for the treasury.
Perhaps the most insidious and dangerous occurrence in our schools is the promulgation of a seemingly unconscious tyrannical culture that goes directly against the very American ideal of freedom. When teachers and students have their first amendment rights muzzled by local statute forbidding them to express their personal political beliefs, Bradford County and America is in trouble. The first amendment is the central pillar on which the rights and guarantees of the Constitution stands. Teachers and students should never live under threats of fear of censure in any American school, and certainly NOT in Bradford Schools. The battle for America will be won or lost in our classrooms and the halls of our schools.
President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “It is not the critics on the sidelines that count. The credit belongs to the man who stands in the arena, face covered by dust and sweat and blood, who spends himself in a worthy cause.” There is no cause more worthy than helping our children to be safe and be the best they can be and so I stand in the arena to champion the cause of every child, every teacher, every custodian and kitchen staff, every bus driver and every administrator, to do that which is right for our children, for Bradford County and for the future of America.
Stand with me! Together let’s make our schools safe and successful and our children into strong, principled citizens who achieve their best potential and love and value with their lives, the American ideals articulated by the Founding Fathers. God bless Bradford County, and God bless America!
