A final message to my students after my firing

[wilsonbooks]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/18/1217134/-A-final-message-to-my-students

The system works.
That I write these words may surprise those who are aware that my employer of the last 10 years, the Joplin R-8 Board of Education, voted 7-0 to terminate my contract earlier this month.

The decision did not surprise me. I was fully aware that teachers rarely survive termination hearings. This hearing, not permanent employment, is the only thing that tenure offers, despite the protestations of the so-called “reformers,” who insist it is keeping thousands of bad teachers in the classrooms.

Not a single parent or student complained about me. The primary witnesses were six administrators. Though the charges against me had nothing to do with any kind of pedophilia, the district’s human resources manager insisted that when she interviewed girls about me, they were so supportive of me that she saw signs of “grooming.” My lawyer vigorously objected to the woman’s loaded language, but it was allowed to remain on the record.

Other such innuendo was sprinkled throughout the administrators’ testimony with the board president noting each of my attorney’s objections and then allowing the remarks to continue unimpeded.