Students Cast the Telling Vote

Something is out of whack in the Capistrano Unified School District.

As an outsider looking in, I had a single silent plea for the school board that wanted to fire Paul Pflueger.

Make the case. But do so convincingly.

You said you had an unfit teacher on your hands, a loose cannon and classroom intimidator. Make the case. Forget tenure. Prove that he’s a bad teacher, and I would have lauded the board’s courage in firing him.

I didn’t know Pflueger or any of his accusers, so I merely wanted to be convinced that this 20-year veteran was so detrimental to students that he must be fired.

And so I went Monday night to hear the case being made to the board of the Capo school district.

What I got was one of the more remarkable nights of my newspaper career.

What I saw was a procession of past and present students describe a teacher of passion, commitment and principle. What I heard were students, parents and Pflueger’s colleagues describe a sometimes abrasive maverick teacher who might fly a little too solo but who cares deeply about his students.

What I heard were students speaking eloquently and forcefully for a man they say helped change their lives.

For all those who say today’s teens don’t want to learn, don’t care to learn, they should have been in the room as, one by one, students marched to the microphone to defend their teacher.

To be sure, Pflueger detractors also spoke.

One parent referred to him as a “sadistic bully who needs professional counseling.” A fellow teacher said he reluctantly supported Pflueger’s firing and was speaking for students afraid to take on Pflueger in public.

I didn’t discount those remarks, but neither could I square them with this: How could a teacher that bad inspire the kind of loyalty Pflueger got Monday night?

Most teachers will end their careers without hearing a single student talk about them the way Pflueger’s students talked about him. Time after time, they cited him as the source of their inspiration, both in and out of the classroom.

There was the recent graduate who said he’d been a lackluster student until he hooked up with Pflueger. “There was a fire lit inside of me by Paul Pflueger,” he said. “He taught me to never give up, never bend and to follow what I believed to be true.”

There was the 10th-grader who said, “Mr. Pflueger made me learn. He made me want to learn.”

A bully who cowed students into silence? What about the mother of a girl with a speech disorder who said her daughter went through school afraid to speak up until she took Pflueger’s class and he brought her out of her shell?

What about the three references to suicidal students who said Pflueger helped them reclaim hope about their lives?

What about the father who said he and his son began discussing current events for the first time because Pflueger infused his son with interest? Or the parents who said their children came home, for the first time ever, talking excitedly about school and a teacher named Pflueger?

Or the girl who had heard that Pflueger was “a Communist, mean and rude,” and that she, as an outspoken Christian and socially conservative, had expected trouble in his class. “Mom told me I had to persevere [in his class], and I’m still thanking her to this day,” the girl said. Pflueger gave her an A, she said.

Not a single student praised Pflueger for being easy. All said he was demanding. All said his occasionally confrontational classroom style was meant to motivate students to think for themselves and defend their positions.

A colleague read a letter from a student who wrote, “It pains me greatly that the only teacher who prepared me for life” was now facing termination.

And so it went.

One student told the board that Pflueger’s firing would represent “blowing out a flame.”

Had this been the movies, the board would have concluded the evening by asking how this teacher ever wound up in the dock in the first place. It would have asked itself what education was all about and then listened as their own students proceeded to tell them.

Instead, it voted 6 to 1 to fire Pflueger.

The midnight hour neared in the boardroom, and I understood again why some teens look at their adult mentors and wonder how they think. The teens see a disconnection between their reality and that of their elders.

And as for Pflueger, remembering his twitching jaw and the tears he wiped away during some of the more poignant tributes, this thought occurred:

Even if his career is over, his students had just given the most important vote he’ll ever get.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821, by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.