I was functionally fired from my teaching job in November, 2024, after an unjust administrative "process" initiated by HR, and triggered by false accusations the content of which I was never told. My "defense" therefore could have no reasonable basis or direction. I won't say the name of the Local Education Agency, but the town where I lived and worked was Cheraw, South Carolina.
I think that once I was on administrative leave, they could use nearly any indiscretion of mine as the final straw to remove me. I did connect with students on social media in protest, and I did express hope that I would quickly be returned to the classroom. The principal of the high school where I worked--a true lackey of the bureaucracy, and fully committed to educational ideas, methods, and solutions that don't work--also allowed his personal dislike of me to take the form of a belief that I was a substandard teacher. He gave me an unsatisfactory review on October 12, and we had a meeting about it later that day. I had to wait in his office for a full 30 minutes before he reiterated everything that was already on the form. It was not any sort of collaborative process; it was a lecture. After that, he initiated a questioning session about my personal efforts to combat food insecurity among my students. Part of that was based upon a lie initiated by a student who was unhappy with my efforts to correct his behavior. Anyway, I didn't say much, but I made no effort to deceive or hide anything I had done. He was fixated on the fact that one student at the heart of the rumors he was hearing was female. *That is, he himself engaged in pre-emptive sex discrimination against me, AND discrimination based upon sexual orientation, in beginning to suspect me of illegal and harmful behavior toward a student or students.*
Let me take one step back from the narrative to say that even if this currently incumbent principal hadn't been unjust toward me in this matter, I would still say he's a bad administrator. I have only now begun to acquire the credentials and certifications of a "real teacher." I was not a high school teacher by training, as many of you know. I'm just brilliant, and I like kids. After I was criticized for what we call "classroom management," I was criticized for a "teacher-centered" approach to my lessons, as opposed to student-centered. I taught 9th grade students; if you don't take a main role for this age of kids, you'll be sitting in silence. Interaction is a function of desire to learn. Now, I'm a funny and interesting guy, but I can't make young teenagers as a whole care about Jane Austen. And no amount of multimedia makes lessons "engaging." One of the gravest crimes of the educational system now is to shift the "blame" for impediments to learning from family breakdown, poverty, and trauma and those causes to the teachers. And this guy is the prime example of this unfairness. I went in with the belief that signs of educational achievement and academic success were somewhat secondary to the students' belief in the worthiness of their own lives. Maybe because I knew how and why my teachers meant so much to me: that's what they did for me. I'm a teacher because of teachers. It's an old story, but clearly we need to keep reminding everyone. This man and others think they can collect some data--or make teachers collect it--and reverse every troubling trend in education that's been growing worse for decades, as if no one before him was troubled, and no one had ever examined the issues. But it sure looks like collecting more data and implementing vaunted "new" pedagogical strategies hasn't made one bit of difference. He wanted to say that I was too close to my students; he's the principal, and he doesn't know them at all. In addition, it sure looks to me like he wanted to "clean house" and "look tough," since those fools at the school Board blamed the previous principal for every fault in the students. I wasn't the only one by any stretch to get out of Dodge, voluntarily or otherwise. He's an authoritarian, and working at the behest of stupid people. At this moment, I should reiterate my opposition to "school choice," owing to my Catholic understanding of the common good. That said, the passion that inspires such initiatives is well-founded.
I should also say, as I get back to the narrative, that I did not go into the meeting on October 12 with a sense that it was formally disciplinary, nor did I leave believing that I had been disciplined. I did not sign anything to that effect. In addition, I did not perceive my follow-up email to be a consent to formal discipline. Even so, this POS said to a parent who spoke in my defense while I was on leave, "I pay him to teach, not be a counselor." He asked me to stop helping students with money, "because what if some parents get mad?" He said some other things that seemed to hint at a fear of legal liability, but I did not understand it to be a formal directive. As a result, if the choice is "feed hungry kids" or "make life easier for bureaucrats and their lawyers," well, you can figure out what I chose. I stopped short of telling him to piss off, but you get the idea. In point of fact, I didn't say anything.
I sought out another administrator for a private conference the following morning. I expressed my anger, and my inclination to resign, not wanting to work for such a terrible person. That individual I met with talked me out of it, but I asked, "Do I need to speak with legal counsel about my charitable giving?" That person said no. They said, "As long as you haven't done anything illegal, you don't have anything to worry about."
The event that precipitated my being placed on leave was a car accident. My personal care assistant crashed my van, and was injured. I terminated her employment when it became clear that some personal issues and her dishonesty about them was only going to get worse. Plus, I had a very important job, but no car, and for a few hours anyway, no help. I live with a serious disability. It was she who called the school and accused me of who knows what. She begged and blackmailed me first, but I do my best to stand in the truth, and to live with whatever happens.
I want to talk about specifically Board Policy GBEB, under which I was placed on leave. Most of it makes sense, pertaining to grave moral and legal violations. The very end of it, however, says something like, "Anything that prevents a teacher from continuing in his or her role." This is a catch-all, especially since District officials themselves created the conditions under which I could not continue. In fact, the aforementioned principal only said, "She was speaking so fast that my secretary could barely keep up with what she said" when I inquired as to the nature of the accusations. I still don't know what they were. I gave a statement on Nov. 8 in the meeting where I was placed on leave with no idea if I would be exonerated, warned, or fired. I asked the HR personnel, "What are you looking for?" and I received no answer. Meanwhile, the principal's interjections during the meeting indicated that he sought my removal. That every question about my activities was treated as a formal warning that somehow led us here. I guess HR is natively a cautious and passive-aggressive bunch, but that struck me as a struggle session, and I didn't know how to get out of it.
A Dr. King passively-aggressively asked me a couple of questions about social media in a meeting on November 14, and if I knew of the social media policy. When I asked him why they were asking me to resign, he simply said, "It's a combination of things." Perhaps I should have let them terminate me. Maybe then I would know. Of course, I'm not in a mode to be self-critical in the face of injustice. I wish I'd have said, "Save the 24 hours. Terminate me, and I'll sue before the ink is dry."
I just encourage everyone who works with this LEA to find another job, if they can. They'll get any caring person, before too long.
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