Aug. 12--William F. Fraccaro developed a reputation among students and colleagues for innovative teaching methods during 31 years with elementary schools in Wheaton and Warrenville.
Fraccaro championed outdoor education programs and science fairs, and sought to challenge his students by introducing advanced subject matter on topics like racism. He also started activity groups including chess club and German club.
"He was always on the cutting edge," said Rich Bernklau, a retired teacher at Lowell Elementary School in Wheaton. "He was not afraid to take chances with students."
Fraccaro, 66, died of sepsis on June 16 at University of Illinois Hospital, said his wife, Joyce. He had contracted MRSA last year, and it had remained dormant for a year before returning recently, causing the sepsis, his wife said. He was a longtime resident of Bolingbrook.
Fraccaro grew up in the south suburbs and earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Elmhurst College in 1970. He earned a master's degree in human resources from the National College of Education in 1983 and then a doctoral degree in education from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in 1990.
Struggling to find a job with his psychology degree, Fraccaro returned to Elmhurst College to pursue teaching certifications at the elementary and high school levels, his wife said. In 1973, he took a job at Lowell Elementary School in Wheaton, where he spent the next 17 years teaching fourth- and fifth-graders.
Students and colleagues at Lowell remembered Fraccaro's willingness to try out new ways of instruction. While at Lowell, Fraccaro formed a chess club and a German club, taking its fifth-grader members to downtown Chicago for a meal at the Berghoff restaurant.
He also challenged his students by assigning them books normally read at higher levels, such as George Orwell's "Animal Farm" and Franz Kafka's novella "The Metamorphosis."
One of Fraccaro's most provocative classroom experiments was to teach students about racism by temporarily giving special privileges to students with one eye color while imposing restrictions on children with other eye colors. The experiment, which lasted one day, was designed to give students a new perspective on racism.
"He was the optimum teacher," Bernklau said. "He looked at all different perspectives and didn't just take things at face value. And he would try things out and try to see everybody's points of view, and he was very deliberate in trying to do that and to understand people's points of view."
In 1990, Wheaton Warrenville Community Unit School District 200 moved Fraccaro to the newly opened Johnson Elementary School in Warrenville. District administrators asked him to be one of Johnson's inaugural teachers and to help set up a science fair and a science program.
"Bill and I ran the science fair for close to 10 years together, and it was the only K-5 science fair in the area," said Tracy Urben, a former colleague at the school. "We had as many as 200 participants in the science fair, and with his cooperation, working together, we were able to pull it off with very little hitches."
While a student at Wheaton College in the late 1980s, Tom Stariha, now a fourth-grade teacher at Johnson, student-taught with Fraccaro.
"The main reason I chose to be with him when I student-taught was because of his innovative teaching and his love of outdoor education," Stariha said. "He was huge into science, and after I had the chance to teach with him, we would co-teach and we would work on science fairs together."
Stariha recalled how Fraccaro created a "bonus point auction" that offered prizes in order to get students to read, and how he brought in ham radio operators so students could pose questions to astronauts on the Mir space station.
"Parents really kind of cared for him," he said. "He got parents to get involved, which sometimes isn't always the easiest thing to do."
During his career, Fraccaro took a year off to serve as an educator-in-residence for the Illinois State Board of Education, working on state standards and tests.
Fraccaro left Johnson around 2002 to teach at Franklin Middle School in Wheaton. After retiring from teaching in 2004, he continued to work with the state education board. He also did some work for Pearson Publishing, writing test questions for various states, his wife said. And he collaborated with officials at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy on computer problem-based learning exercises.
"He loved getting kids excited about learning, and he was one of the people who really believed in hands-on learning and experiential teaching, rather than just sitting reading books," his wife said. "He always did things. And he believed in preparation and felt a responsibility for the next generation of good teachers."
Fraccaro also is survived by a brother, the Rev. Joseph; and a sister, Rose Schroader.
A memorial service was held July 11.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
