Mrs. Debbie Broussard Receives the Brother More Schaefer Faculty Award

Every Year, the Brother Martin High School Board of Directors hosts a luncheon for our faculty and staff as a way of recognizing their contributions to carrying out the everyday mission of Brother Martin. The Faculty Recognition Ceremony was held this past Sunday.

This year, we celebrated the 30th year of service – an amazing accomplishment in an age of frequent job changes – of another faculty member, Ms. Jeanne Bandera, longtime Math teacher and 2007 Brother More Schaefer recipient.

Also, two faculty members and our Development Director were recognized for serving Brother Martin High School for twenty years – They are

Tommy Mitchell, the Assistant to the President and our Development Director;

Brother Louis Couvillon, our chaplain; and

Mark Wisniewski, Head of our Health and PE Department and Head Baseball Coach.

At this ceremony on Sunday, the Board of Directors also grants an award to a teacher who is considered outstanding in the field of evangelization, through his/her work here at Brother Martin. The award is named after Brother More Schaefer, a Brother of the Sacred Heart, who epitomized all that is excellent in teaching in the charism of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart: excellence in instruction, commitment to formation, and demonstration of Christian witness. This honor is all the more special to our faculty because the recipient is nominated by his/her peers.

The 2012 recipient of the Brother More Schaefer Award has been teaching at Brother Martin for 14 years and has taught in several departments, always serving the school where needed. This teacher is the model of preparation and clarity of explanation. Her students know exactly where they are going and how they will get there. Deliberation, explanation, and clarification are routine in her classes. This teacher makes personal attention a priority. She regularly meets with students, often not even her own students, one-on-one to provide academic tutoring. One of her peers described this teacher’s classroom personality as “sweet and salty”. She sees every student as an individual and is concerned about their personal development as well as their academic progress. But, she is equally comfortable calling them to task and practicing “tough love”, all the while maintaining patience.

But, she is more than just a good math and science teacher. She is a prayerful woman devoted to her Catholic faith and the faith formation of her students. She is the product of a Catholic upbringing and has spent her entire professional life devoted to Catholic education. She reminds us all how important Brother Martin’s Catholic identity is to our very mission and that we need to constantly express and display this identity. “It is what makes us different and makes us special,” she says.

The 2012 recipient of the Brother More Schaefer Award is also committed to formation, her own, her students’, and her colleagues’. Instead of hoarding her strategies and sensibilities, she shares them, sometimes whether you want to hear them or not, kind of like Judge Judy! She is a great friend to the new teacher, a mother of sorts who nurtures those new to education like she nurtures her own students. She always has the needs of the school—its mission and ministry—at the forefront of her informal and formal formation practices. She nurtures and calls to task with the same passion. In many ways, she is innately a wise woman—wise to human nature, to the challenges of Catholic education, to what works and what doesn’t, and to doing the “right thing” inside and outside the classroom.

Please help us recognize our 2012 Brother More Schaefer Award winner, Mrs. Debbie Broussard.