Board of Education

There are a lot of problems facing public schools today. There is not enough money and the benefits offered to teachers in the past are not quite as good.

That is why schools need to cherish the special educators when they come along.

Like Reggie Murray.

For more than two decades I have dealt with Reggie and he has earned my complete respect. He is a good basketball coach, as proven by more than 600 victories his teams have achieved. But his value goes much further.

Reggie worked just as hard during those seasons when his team was just average as he did when he had championship talent. His goal, and the goal of every great coach, is to have a better team at the end of the season than when it started.

And isn’t that the goal of public education — to make each student better at the end of each day than they were when it started.

According to published reports, one administrator in your school system effectively called Reggie a liar when he explained that the email scheduling his interview went to spam, something that has happened to all of us at one time or another. And, by the way, why is something that significant communicated only by email. Wouldn’t a written notice in his school mailbox have been more professional?

Through the years it has been my experience that coaches have come under fire occasionally by a board member who was unhappy with his son or daughter’s playing time. It is one of the reasons why I have always believed that parents with children in the school system should not be permitted to serve on boards of education. Hopefully that is not the situation here.

One thing is certain. Either with malice or extreme sloppiness the Trenton Board of Education has failed to treat Reggie Murray — one of the good educators — with any measure of respect after his more than three decades of dedicated service to the students and athletes in your school.

In fact, it is a measure of his love for Trenton Central and the student-athletes there that he is fighting to retain the position he has handled with such class through the years. A lesser person would just move on and make use of his skills somewhere else, a move that would be a disservice to the students you are supposed to serve.

Reggie Murray is the kind of educator that public education needs. And any group that would let him get away — particularly in the unprofessional way it was handled — should be ashamed. It is a grievous error that Mayor Jackson should take into consideration when making future BOE appointments.

If this mistake cannot be corrected, we all look forward to working with Reggie wherever he ends up. He will take his talents and his dedication somewhere to help another group of student-athletes because he loves what he does and he does it very well.

It is just a shame that the student-athletes of Trenton Central, who are supposed to benefit from your decisions, will suffer from his absence. —Tom Williams

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