For two school years, I taught at Blue Jay Academy in DeLand, Florida, a private school serving students with special needs. My first year I taught middle and high school math, and my second year I taught science. To my students, I was Mr. Nick. I would much rather be getting ready for another year with them than writing this, but most people reading this have no idea what happened, and I think the story needs to be told from the beginning.

I became very close with many of my students and their families. For some of these kids, consistency is incredibly important. A teacher is not just the person standing at the front of the room explaining fractions or ecosystems. You become part of their routine and part of the small circle of adults they learn to trust. Several parents told me their children had started enjoying school in a way they had not before. Some students trusted me enough to talk about serious things happening in their lives, including things they had not previously felt comfortable discussing with other adults. That trust meant a great deal to me, and it is one of the main reasons I stayed at Blue Jay even when the work became difficult.

That is also why I worry about what my sudden absence will mean to some of them. Students with special needs can depend heavily on routine, familiar adults, and stable relationships. I wrote about that concern before I was ever fired. Repeated employee turnover and changing classroom assignments can damage the trust students build with teachers and interfere with both their emotional and educational progress. I am fortunate that I became friends with a number of parents and can remain in contact with those parents if they choose, but I know that is not the same as walking into the classroom every morning and being their teacher. I imagine some students will have questions about why Mr. Nick simply is not there anymore.

What happened did not begin with my termination. It began with safety.

By the summer of 2026, I had already experienced serious situations inside the school. I had been kicked. I had an object swung at me. I had been directly threatened with being shot and killed. There were occasions when I had to physically intervene when students became violent, and I believe there were moments when someone could have been seriously injured if another adult had not stepped in quickly. My concern was never that children with disabilities should be punished for struggling. My concern was that children with significant behavioral needs require enough trained, supported adults around them to keep everyone safe, including the child who is in crisis. My HR statement documented the violence, threats, physical interventions, limited staffing, and pressure placed on teachers who were expected to educate students while also becoming the immediate crisis response when situations turned dangerous.

That history matters because it explains why I took the events leading up to Friday, July 24 seriously. I am intentionally withholding many details because I do not want anyone trying to identify a student. What I can say is that several warning signs had accumulated. Among the information reported to me was that a student had reportedly been hiding knives at home and that the student’s parent was considering an emergency mental health evaluation under Florida’s Baker Act. There were other concerns as well, some of which I personally observed and some of which were reported to me. In the statement I eventually submitted to Human Resources, I was careful to separate those categories rather than pretending I had personally witnessed everything.

On July 24, that student returned to school. My daughter was also in the building under the summer arrangement that allowed me to bring her, and younger children were present. Based on what I knew at the time and what I had previously experienced at Blue Jay, I believed stronger precautions were needed. I became angry. I spoke loudly and forcefully and argued with local leadership. I am not going to rewrite that part to make myself look perfect. I was upset because I believed people could get hurt.

I eventually walked into another room for several minutes to collect myself rather than continue escalating the argument. After thinking about the situation, I clocked out and left because I did not believe I could safely remain in the building under the circumstances. I later made clear that I had not resigned. In the written statement I eventually gave Human Resources, I acknowledged that I was upset and spoke forcefully, explained why I left, and stated that I had stepped away to collect my thoughts before making that decision.

The way the situation was handled afterward is a major reason I am speaking now. The incident happened on Friday. The weekend passed. Monday passed. It was Tuesday before I was communicating directly with someone above local school leadership. Even then, I had to push for basic clarity. I asked whether I was still employed. I asked for confirmation that I had not been recorded as resigning or abandoning my position. I asked for Human Resources. I asked whether the meeting they wanted me to attend was about the safety incident, a complaint about my conduct, my concerns about how the situation had been handled, or some combination of those things. I asked for someone above the local level to hear me privately, and I asked for enough time to prepare an accurate written timeline and distinguish what I personally witnessed from information reported by other people. I was asking these questions in writing before I had any idea how this story would end.

That is when the process began to feel backwards to me. I started by reporting incidents and raising concerns about safety. Gradually, the focus increasingly became my reaction, my decision to leave, my communication, and whether I had disagreed with leadership appropriately. I am not saying my behavior should have been immune from review. It should not have been. If I raised my voice, they were entitled to discuss that with me. What bothered me was the feeling that the person raising the alarm was slowly becoming the center of the investigation while I was still trying to understand what had been concluded about the alarm itself.

Human Resources eventually asked me to put everything in writing. On August 3, I submitted an eleven page workplace safety statement. I did not demand that they simply believe me. I specifically wrote that other people would need to be interviewed and records reviewed before conclusions were reached. I acknowledged my own behavior and told them I would cooperate with follow up questions. Most importantly, I wrote that my concern was the safety of the students and employees and the school’s ability to provide a stable learning environment regardless of what ultimately happened to my own employment.

While I waited, plans and expectations continued changing. At one point Human Resources told me that the matter needed to be resolved that week so I could return for Monday training and that further delay could postpone my return to the building. I remained on paid administrative leave and continued cooperating. I also continued asking what they had actually determined about the underlying safety issues and what would be different when I returned.

During this process, I disclosed a learning disability and asked for important findings, expectations, and documents in writing because processing a large amount of significant information in real time can be difficult for me. I offered to meet earlier by video. I expressly told Human Resources that I was not refusing the meeting and was not refusing to return to work.

Eventually, I was instructed to report back to Blue Jay Academy on Monday, August 10. I went there expecting to return to my classroom.

The document prepared for that meeting supported that expectation. After its review, the company wrote that there was insufficient information to support further employment action. It said the purpose of the coaching was to support my successful return to the workplace. It said I was expected to return to my assigned responsibilities and complete additional training. The company also wrote that its investigation did not establish that I intended to intimidate or threaten a student.

After more than two weeks of waiting, emails, administrative leave, interviews, video review, and the eleven page report they had asked me to prepare, the written outcome was not termination. It was coaching, training, and my return to work.

Then the meeting became contentious. I still believed the conversation was focused far more heavily on how I had reacted than on what had been done about the conditions that caused me to raise the alarm. I pushed back. I became loud. I argued with people above me. I did not use profanity and, from my perspective, I did not threaten anyone. I did not quietly agree simply because the people across the table wanted the discussion to move in a direction I believed missed the larger issue.

The accommodation issue also came up. I told them that the accommodations I had actually requested had not been provided. When they wanted to continue explaining the formal accommodation paperwork, I told them I understood what it was, could review it myself, and wanted to continue the substantive discussion. I took the paperwork with me. Human Resources later characterized that as me verbally declining the interactive process. I dispute that characterization. I did not say that I no longer wanted accommodations. I said that I understood the paperwork and wanted to move the meeting forward.

Roughly thirty minutes after walking into a meeting with paperwork describing my successful return, that return was gone. Later that afternoon, Human Resources emailed me that I was being terminated immediately because of my “conduct in today’s meeting.”

That leaves me with a simple question. What specifically happened during those thirty minutes that changed a documented plan for coaching, training, and my successful return into immediate termination? If there was a specific statement, threat, refusal, action, or policy violation that justified that change, I believe it should be identified clearly.

There is another question that matters much more to me than whether I ever get my job back. What happened to the safety concerns that started all of this? My written report described turnover, limited staffing, violent incidents, threats, and teachers trying to provide meaningful instruction while also being expected to handle dangerous situations. I wrote before I was terminated that the students deserved enough employees, clear safety procedures, accurate documentation, reliable communication, and teachers who could actually focus on teaching them.

To my knowledge when I left, the DeLand campus was still short at least two teachers, and I had not seen teacher assistants hired in the numbers I believed were needed. I no longer work there, so I cannot tell anyone what their staffing roster looks like today. I can tell you what I saw while I was there. I also know that there were times when I was one of the adults physically stepping in when a situation became dangerous. I am no longer in that building to do that. I do not say that with satisfaction. It worries me, because if another serious situation happens, somebody still has to be there to protect the students and the employees around them.

As I began looking more closely at what had happened to my employment, I also started looking at the organizations behind the decisions. I taught at Blue Jay Academy, but the executive directly involved in my employment matter identified herself as the Chief Operating Officer of Brightstone Therapy, while Human Resources was being handled through Milestone Education. Public Florida corporate records add another layer worth examining. Blue Jay Academy of West Volusia’s 2024 annual report listed Ralph Garcia as president, Lisa Eddy as principal, and Mitchell Brandt as vice president. The 2025 filing, submitted during my employment, instead listed Brian Kohn as president and Asher Jacobs as vice president. (Sunbiz)

Milestone Education describes itself publicly as a national network that allows schools to preserve their local branding while receiving the resources and support of a larger organization. Its own school evaluation page describes reviewing prospective schools’ finances, revenue sources, operating costs, management, compliance, facilities, and growth potential before a partnership. (Milestone Education) Brightstone Therapy’s current Florida filing lists Brian Kohn as an authorized representative, along with two LLCs as authorized members. (Sunbiz) Those records do not, by themselves, prove the complete ownership relationship among Blue Jay, Milestone, and Brightstone, and I am not claiming that they do. They do give parents, employees, journalists, and anyone else interested in this story some very reasonable questions to investigate about who controls what and where responsibility ultimately sits.

That matters because Blue Jay itself tells families that it is committed to serving students with special needs, maintaining dedicated teachers and staff, and providing an integrated educational environment. (Blue Jay Academy) If the public is going to ask questions, I want those questions directed toward whether that promise is being supported with enough stable staff, adequate safety systems, and meaningful support for the adults responsible for these children every day.

I know some people are angry about what happened to me, and I appreciate the support. But I do not want “Justice for Mr. Nick” to become revenge. Do not harass employees. Do not threaten anyone. Do not troll people, spam inboxes, or try to identify the students involved. Do not contact students or their families. If you want to help, do something more useful. Ask professional questions. Send a respectful email. Make a normal phone call. Ask how many teachers and teacher assistants are currently working at the DeLand campus. Ask how serious safety complaints are investigated. Ask what support exists when a student becomes physically dangerous. Ask about the relationships among Blue Jay Academy, Milestone Education, and Brightstone Therapy. If you have your own firsthand experience, tell your own story accurately and preserve the records that support it.

Blue Jay Academy publicly lists its DeLand campus at 107 S. Chandler Avenue and invites questions, comments, and concerns through its website. Its public telephone number is 386 868 1979. (Blue Jay Academy) After I was terminated, I also asked Human Resources where people who independently contacted me with concerns, complaints, or feedback about Blue Jay Academy should be directed. I asked because I did not want to pretend that I spoke for the school. Human Resources told me to direct those concerns to Michelle Rodia, Vice President of Human Resources for Milestone Education, at michelle.rodia@milestoneed.com. If you contact either channel, please do so respectfully, professionally, and in your own words.

I cared about Blue Jay before this conflict began, and I still care about what happens to the children there. Some of those students trusted me with parts of themselves that they had struggled to share with other adults. Some parents watched their children become excited about school again. Those relationships are why this hurts, and they are why I refuse to reduce this story to whether one angry teacher deserved to keep his job.

For two years, I was Mr. Nick. I taught math, then science. I tried to make school a place my students wanted to come to, and I tried to be an adult they knew would listen when something mattered. I am lucky that I remain friends with many of their parents and can stay connected with those families where the parents want that relationship to continue. But I also know that consistency inside the classroom matters, and I worry about what another sudden loss of a teacher means for children who have already experienced too much instability.

I would rather be standing in that classroom than writing this. I am not there anymore. The kids are.

So if people want justice for Mr. Nick, I hope they understand what I mean by justice. I do not want hatred directed at anyone. I want questions answered. I want enough trained adults in the building. I want teachers who are supported well enough to stay. I want employees to be able to raise a serious safety concern without the concern disappearing underneath a debate about the employee who raised it. Most of all, I want the children at Blue Jay Academy to have the stable, safe, supportive school they deserve.

That is why I am speaking.