How to get a teacher fired?

Leaving the police out and a non-criminal matter does make it rather difficult. It's late 80s, so widespread use of the Internet is unlikely. Could the student accuse the teacher of being some sort of fraud? Could she produce some fake evidence that he doesn't actually have a teaching degree?

Age of Consent in Louisiana is currently 17 (with a 4 year close in age exemption, which means a teacher 21yo+ having sex with his student is likely prison-bound and will supposedly do anything in exchange of leniency). Do you know what the law was back in the 80s?

Teacher is caught buying liquor for a group of kids. This is more common than one realizes, and in the 1980's, if caught, the teacher would be fired. That. Day.

The booze would work, and that's probably the easiest. Otherwise, you could have something a little too close to sexual contact without any actual illicit contact, like her sitting on his lap after a shower, wearing just a towel, and the planned entry of the assistant head of school happens on time.

What about something around him giving or even selling test papers to favoured students.? Or the teacher is lured into a "Peeping Tom" scenario. Or a faked violent attack?

I think the issue you'll have here is that you don't want it to be a criminal thing - so peeping tom, sexual acts, violence etc are probably all out. Other things, such as fraud etc, would require an investigation by the school authorities etc, and might be hard to pull together in a matter of days.

Not sure how these issues work in the states, but here there are all sorts of things you have to go through before you fire someone. Gross misconduct aside, you can't just fire someone, you have to give them warnings, go through the correct procedures, right of appeal etc. Even with gross misconduct - theft, violence etc - the matter would be invesdtigated internally, and possibly criminally depending on the severity of it, and even then the individual would have the right to appeal, solicitors could get involved etc.

Teachers involved in these sort of accusations tend to be suspended from work while the investigation is going on.

Given that it would be easy to get a teacher fired and facing criminal charges by all the above comments, maybe the way to go would be have the guy lure the teacher into a compromising position, snap a few polaroids, and then blackmail the teacher into quitting.

If you just want the teacher out of the way for a bit, then you could go for a plausible, serious accusation (as above) and they are suspended while it is investigated. (Not that I know anything about boarding schools in Louisiana in the 1980s )

Have someone pose as the teacher's boyfriend bringing him lunch or whatnot. Plenty of teachers (from both public and private schools) get fired for being gay.

I don't see how this could be done any other way except for blackmailing the teacher out of the picture. Without a criminal act, no teachers' union would allow for the immediate dismissal of a teacher. If this teacher works in a public school, he is in the union.
Even if he taught in a non-unionized school, I would think there'd be some sort of due process involved.

She could inject a drop of pure nicotine in the middle of one of his cigarette. The guy goes outside for a smoke and dies of instant stroke, with the proof gone up in smoke.

Oh. Wait. You don't want to kill him.

-cb

Yeah, I'm hanging on the due process as well. Whatever the kid comes up with has to be a doozy and very much witnessed to result in an instant firing. Kicking the teacher out of school immediately pending looking into it would work for me, though.

Alcohol and kids might do it. Teacher not *wanting* an investigation might do it. "OK, you suspend me pending an investigation but, you know what? I quit!" If the teacher's been doing other unsavory things that would also work for me.

And I also want to add that this question is one of the best posed questions in this forum in a while. Who, what, where, when, why, and what the story needs, all laid out in one neat concise paragraph. Nice!

Kay said:

I don't see how this could be done any other way except for blackmailing the teacher out of the picture. Without a criminal act, no teachers' union would allow for the immediate dismissal of a teacher. If this teacher works in a public school, he is in the union.
Even if he taught in a non-unionized school, I would think there'd be some sort of due process involved.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily, and especially if it's a religious private school - anything that violates the school's code of conduct could conceivably be cause for immediate dismissal. Tons of teachers have been fired when it comes out that they write romance novels under a pen name on the side, for instance, and there was a case in Texas recently where a teacher's mother died and the obituary in the newspaper mentioned the teacher's (same-sex) partner as "surviving family" - a parent noticed, complained, and the teacher was fired.

cbenoi1 said:

She could inject a drop of pure nicotine in the middle of one of his cigarette. The guy goes outside for a smoke and dies of instant stroke, with the proof gone up in smoke.

Oh. Wait. You don't want to kill him.

-cb

Click to expand...

Yeah, because that's the only thing wrong with that plan. Where is a teenager in the 80's going to get pure nicotine? I'm a scientist and I couldn't tell you where or how to get it.

wendymarlowe said:

Not necessarily, and especially if it's a religious private school - anything that violates the school's code of conduct could conceivably be cause for immediate dismissal. Tons of teachers have been fired when it comes out that they write romance novels under a pen name on the side, for instance, and there was a case in Texas recently where a teacher's mother died and the obituary in the newspaper mentioned the teacher's (same-sex) partner as "surviving family" - a parent noticed, complained, and the teacher was fired.

Click to expand...

Seriously? That's......wow. Insane. Unhuman. Wrong.

If you generalize the problem to getting anyone fired on the spot, it's an impossible task without knowing darn well what goes into that person's head and what is the boss / employee dynamics in this organization. In other words, there has to be a powder keg in there to begin with so that all your MC's friend has to do is light up the fuse. Anything short of that would not get past the reader's suspension of disbelief.

Think about a school principal / teacher situation that has been simmering for some time, all in parallel to your story. Salary / pay cuts? Having been passed up for promotion or project funding? Bad performance reviews? Any personal problems such as signs of depression or anxiety? Medical problems that could resurface if the medication is switched with a placebo?

Hope this helps.

-cb