A Lasting Legacy: Longtime Arcadia Unified Educators Dr. Hacking and Mr. Bramley Retire

The end of the school year will be the end of an era for a pair of longtime Arcadia Unified educators. Two notable changes will come with the retirements of Scott Bramley and Dr. Daniel Hacking.

For Bramley, his ties to Arcadia Unified are deep and very meaningful. He attended Bonita Park Elementary School, which is now the site of the District Office where he worked for the past decade, and down the street from his childhood home. A graduate of Arcadia High School (Class of 1983), his grandmother, Maxine Friesen, started working at Holly Avenue as a Supervisor of the cafeteria in 1951. She retired after 32 years in Arcadia as the Director of Food Services. Bramley, who put in 34 years with AUSD, says his grandmother was his hero and inspiration, who taught him about work ethic and passion for education.

(Bramley at Dana Middle School as PE Teacher & Coach in 1991)

Education and AUSD run four generations deep in the Bramley family, as his father was also a custodian and maintenance worker for Arcadia, and his son Matthew is a Computer Systems Support Technician. His youngest son, Jacob, worked part-time for AUSD in years past and is now working for the LPGA as a Graphic Designer. His mother, Cheryl, was the Director of Preschool at Santa Teresita Hospital, and his sister, Lisa, was an Administrative Assistant for nearby Baldwin Park Unified School District for 30 years.

(Newspaper article from July 21, 1983, about Bramley’s Grandmother retiring from AUSD)

"I was so fortunate to grow up in Arcadia, attend Arcadia schools, and to spend my entire 34-year career in this incredible organization. My wife Paula, our sons Matthew and Jacob, and I are incredibly grateful to Arcadia Unified School District for the opportunities my career provided for our family," Bramley said.

Education was also the Hackings' family business. His wife, Michelle, is a longtime educator and currently a school counselor for the Burbank Unified School District. Burbank is also where Dr. Hacking first started his career teaching social science at John Burroughs High School in 1990.

(2016, Former Assistant Principal Jeff Hunter, left with Dr. Hacking, right, after agreeing to dye their hair Mariner red to support a student fundraising effort)

Both of Dr. Hacking’s sisters pursued the family business in higher education as well. Alison Pike is a professor of psychology at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, and Jane Hacking is a professor emeritus in Slavic Languages at the University of Utah. They took a more direct route in following their very well-known and accomplished father, Ian Hacking, who was a world-renowned Canadian philosopher and author who wrote a dozen highly regarded books. He taught at some of the most prestigious universities, including the University of Cambridge and Stanford. He won the Holberg Memorial Prize in 2009, which came with an award of $750,000. That was just one of several awards and recognitions, which included being elected Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Canada, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

(Canadian Philosopher Ian Hacking)

“He was the smartest man I have ever known,” Daniel recalled. “He demanded intellectual curiosity and academic excellence. He was also a fantastic teacher who loved to take his son camping. We would hike for hours to some remote campsite, cook steaks over the fire, and sleep under the stars, where he would explain the constellations in the night sky. We cycled through Northern California, the Italian Alps, and the flatlands of Holland and Germany. Never a dull moment. He actually led me to a career in K-12 education because I was not going to try to follow in his footsteps as a college academic.”

While taking a slightly different route, Dr. Hacking ends a career in education that his late father would be extremely proud of. The elder Hacking dedicated his third book, written in 1975, The Emergence of Probability, to his son Daniel, who calls it his most prized possession.

“My father was a tough man to love, but he made me a non-complaining tough son of a gun,” Daniel said.

After being promoted to Principal at John Muir Middle School in 2003 where he was for 7 years, Hacking made the journey to Arcadia in 2010 when he was named the Principal of Dana Middle School, a position he held for 11 years before being promoted to the Secondary Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment for Arcadia Unified.

“Arcadia Unified School District is simply the best, most effective, most functional school district I have ever had the pleasure of working for. Everyone here works collaboratively.

The leadership is wise, not reactive, and very supportive. I will miss the people and the district, but it's time to relax for the first time in 35 years. I can't wait,” said Dr. Hacking.

Dr. Angela Dillman, who spent the last seven years as the Principal of Arcadia High School, will succeed Dr. Hacking at the district office. Greg Gazanian, an Arcadia High alum, will take over for Bramley in the same department where he started in 1997 as a student-worker while in eighth grade.