Thomas Reinke

An Open Letter to the Citizens of

the Franklin Public School District

June 21, 2010

Dear Friends,

First, I want to thank you for all the cards, emails, calls, letters, and other
messages of support that so many parents, teachers, staff, and other members
of the community have sent to me, my family and to my attorney. Your
respect and support mean the world to me.

Second, my attorney and I have been repeatedly asked if the Board of

Education has responded to my request for a hearing before it takes action to
hire a new principal for Robinwood Elementary School and to transfer me to
another position. The answer is, “No.” I sent a letter to every Board
member by email and U.S. Mail on June 21. I sent a follow-up email to
every Board member about a week later. I have not received any response
or acknowledgment of my letter from any Board member.

I hope that, ultimately, the Board will agree that—based on my 17 years as a

successful administrator in the District and 11 years as the Principal of
Robinwood Elementary School—I deserve the opportunity to have a
hearing.

Third, I want you to know that I remain optimistic that this situation will be
resolved in positive way. The members of the Board of Education are good
people, and I am confident that, once they remove the barriers to
communication and get both sides of the story, they will do the right thing.
We live in a democratic society where open government and the free flow of
communication mean that elected officials are accountable to the people
who elect them.

Fourth, I want to respond to some rumors. I have seen emails from one
Board officer saying that I have filed papers in court. This is not true. I
have not sued the District, Dr. Patz, or anyone else. In December, I merely
gave notice to the Board of Education that if it did not take action to correct
some actions taken by Dr. Patz that I could be harmed. My December
communication to the Board, however, emphasized my desire to meet with
the Board to resolve this situation in a positive manner.

Finally, this situation is something that we can talk about openly as long as
we respect the rights of all concerned. In April, Dr. Patz released hundreds
of pages of documents to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel because, as he said
in a letter to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and to me, “the public interest
in disclosure outweighs the public interest in non-disclosure.” Although I
have avoided talking about other employees, I know that many of you have
reviewed the documents that Dr. Patz released to the newspaper and that you
know what they show. Whether the District should now spend $150,000 on
a new administrative position is a legitimate topic of public discussion for
you and your elected representatives on the Board of Education.

Like many of you, I have made open records requests for information from
Dr. Patz that he has not honored. I am confident that, once the barriers to
communication are removed, the right decisions will be made and we will
use the limited resources that we have to do what is best for kids. I
acknowledged long ago that there are many things that I could have done
better, and I hope that others will do the same.

I am extremely humbled to have been the Principal of such an excellent

school for the last 11 years and to have earned the respect and confidence of
so many members of the community. I am also extremely proud of the
excellent faculty and staff at Robinwood and of the support that we have had
from parents, volunteers, and the entire community. Although Robinwood
and its students are excellent in many ways, it is no accident that during the
2009-10 school year Robinwood’s WKCE test scores were the sixth highest
among elementary schools in the entire state of Wisconsin.

Working for Kids,

Tom Reinke