We were pleased to read Lindsay Larin’s article about Paula Fraser and her fine teaching. Our son, Reid Saaris, was a student in Paula’s PRISM class. He was reluctant to change schools for 5th grade to enter her class, but by Thanksgiving he told us that it was the best thing that had happened to him that year. We have shared your article with him, and he confirmed what an important influence Paula was. I worked as a counselor/psychologist in Bellevue, and also saw the positive results of her teaching in many situations.

Here’s what happened to one of Paula’s students following experience with her. Reid went on to the PRISM program at Odle Middle School, and then to Interlake High School, where he received his IB diploma and earned a 4.0 grade point. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, and in June will receive his MBA and Masters in Education from Stanford.

In 2004, he began teaching at Battery Creek High School in Beaufort, SC, and used the Socratic method that Paula Fraser introduced him to. He later became the coordinator of the school’s IB program. He became passionate that all students should have the opportunities offered in the IB program. In 2008, he started a non-profit organization, Equal Opportunity Schools, with the goal of finding the minority and low-income students who should have been in the IB or other advanced academic programs. In Beaufort and in San Jose, Calif., schools, he succeeded in adding approximately 400 such students to the advanced programs.

We were thrilled to learn this week that Reid has been awarded an $80,000 fellowship from Stanford to continue his non-profit work, and we are looking forward to his July move back to this area to establish the headquarters of his company.

Thanks to Paula for her positive influence on Reid and her many other students over her long career in Bellevue!

Carolyn Reid (and Gary Saaris), Bellevue