Teaching is a thankless job. After working years to earn your degree, you must then deal with rambunctious kids who couldn’t be less interested in learning. Worse, the pay rates for this hardship are mediocre at best. These hurdles are enough to drive anyone crazy. Writers sometimes take notice of that.

Fiction has given us numerous nutty teachers over the years. Their insanity usually lies in their behavior or curriculum. They might have some bizarre quirk to their deliveries, or they could impose tyrannical rules on pupils. Then again, they may just have some strange hobbies on the side. All of these traits affect their students, often injuring or traumatizing them beyond repair. These crimes would naturally lead to teachers losing their licenses in real life. In fiction, though, their loony lessons are just fun to watch.

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10 Professor Trelawney

“Colorful” is the word for most teachers at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Even by that standard, though, Professor Trelawney is a fruity figure. The Divination teacher specializes in predictions through tea leaves, palm reading, and star gazing. She’s basically a glorified fortuneteller. Suffice it to say, she probably sees stars on a daily basis.

Trelawney is the very image of a crazy cat lady. Her unkempt hair, thick glasses, and chaotic wardrobe are enough to drive most people off. The rest have to put up with her neurotic noises and random asides. She regularly predicts misfortune on her students, delivering her prophecies in the most ominous ways possible without a care for their feelings. This professor is truly in her own little world.^[1]

9 Mr. Crocker

In all fairness, Mr. Crocker’s craziness emerges outside the classroom in The Fairly OddParents. That’s not to say that he shirks his duties, though. He thoroughly enjoys handing out failing grades to his students, taking great pleasure in their misery. It doesn’t matter if they do well or not; he has a ready supply of “F” grades stashed in his desk. Of course, his true passion lies elsewhere.

More than anything, Crocker believes in fairy godparents. He’s so passionate in his belief that he manically shouts about their existence to anyone who’ll listen. More directly, he concocts countless evil schemes to track and capture the magical creatures. These plans get increasingly ridiculous with every failure. Granted, he’s right about fairies being real, but his deranged demeanor doesn’t convince anyone.^[2]

8 Ms. Frizzle

This teacher isn’t mean or oppressive, but she more than makes up for those traits through child endangerment. Ms. Frizzle is an energetic soul. She believes in a hands-on approach to education, rejecting the sterile dullness of the classroom in favor of daily field trips. That prospect sounds exciting, but these journeys aren’t just walks in the park.

Driving the eponymous Magic School Bus, this wild woman takes her students to fantastic locales they can only dream of. One day, they might dodge dinosaurs in prehistoric times. Another day, they could swim through a person’s bloodstream. These scenarios are obviously dangerous, but the impending death of her students doesn’t seem to bother Ms. Frizzle at all. She just laughs off every peril without a care in the world. That’s not the attitude you want for the person watching your kids.^[3]

7 Ms. Bitters

Invader Zim crafts a demented world to begin with, but arguably, the greatest terror lies in school. Ms. Bitters is a haunting presence. She appears and disappears from the shadows, and she looms over students like a lanky vulture. She seems more wraith than human, making it impossible to relax in the classroom. Believe it or not, she only gets more unsettling as you get to know her.

“Bitters” is as good a name as any. This teacher utterly despises children, and she has no qualms about saying so. Nothing would please her more than for them to die horrible deaths. The kids even theorize that she descends from a species of flesh-eating insects. That certainly tracks with the bugs crawling over her face, and it comes to a head in the characters’ nightmares, where she’s a shape-shifting bug queen who consumes kids. Whether the rumors are founded or not, Ms. Bitters is ominous enough to terrify the titular alien tyrant. That’s saying a lot.^[4]

6 Walter White

Hardship can warp the best men. Instructors are no exception to that rule, as Walter White learns in Breaking Bad. This chemistry aficionado teaches at J.P. Wynne High School, but it’s far from an ideal position. Disrespectful students and financial problems regularly demoralize him. The nail in the coffin comes from a terminal cancer diagnosis. These woes push White over the edge.

Upon discovering his former pupil’s drug business, Walt decides to get in on the action. His chemistry expertise lets him make the best crystal meth around. Unfortunately, the inherent danger means he must take increasingly drastic measures to survive. These events morph him into a ruthless killer. Soon, the humble teacher becomes the region’s leading drug lord. Talk about a career change.^[5]

5 Jin Kuwana

Bullying harms kids the world over, but it can also affect teachers. Such is the case with Yu Kitakata. In Lost Judgment, his classroom is the site of merciless mocking. The instructor brushes it off as normal, but the targeted boy eventually attempts suicide and winds up in a coma. The whole incident demonstrates inexcusable negligence on Kitakata’s part, resulting in a guilty conscience and his unceremonious firing. Sadly, he learns the wrong lesson from the ordeal.

Changing his name to “Jin Kuwana,” the former teacher goes on the warpath. He ruthlessly exacts vigilante justice against Japan’s bullies and anyone who sanctions it. He even helps disgruntled parents torture and kill the tormentors without batting an eye. As an added insult, he blackmails his comatose student’s bullies to aid in his crusade. The tale is a classic case of fighting fire with fire.^[6]

4 Ra’s al Ghul

This immortal warrior wants to make the world a better place. Ra’s al Ghul leads an elite group of fighters with the sole intention of achieving that goal. He teaches them the ways of hand-to-hand combat, ninjutsu, and deception. Certain continuities even position him as Batman’s master. His centuries of knowledge and experience are invaluable sources of learning. Unfortunately, what he uses these gifts for is less than ideal.

The villain’s method of saving the world often lies in genocide. He’s willing to purge large portions of humanity to restore the planet’s purity or restart a failing society. What’s worse is that he imbues this warped worldview into his pupils, creating a doomsday cult with unparalleled skills as killers. The cherry on top is the Lazarus Pit. Bathing in its mystical waters helps Ra’s maintain his youth, but it also robs him of what little reason he has. A megalomaniac is dangerous at the best of times, but an immortal one is a disaster waiting to happen.^[7]

3 Miss Trunchbull

Given that she stems from a Roald Dahl tale, Miss Trunchbull is naturally twisted. The headmistress of Crunchem Hall Elementary School hates kids with every fiber of her being. She despises them so much that she denies ever having a childhood. Even the most well-behaved individuals—the titular Matilda—are pure evil in her eyes. Don’t think she doesn’t act on those impulses.

Trunchbull abuses her students in the most ludicrous ways. One moment, she might force a heavyset boy to eat an entire chocolate cake. In another scene, she swings a girl around by her pigtails and tosses her like a hammer throw. These punishments are equal parts horrific and cartoonish. What’s worse is that they’re entirely unfounded. Trunchbull tortures these kids purely out of spite.^[8]

2 Darth Sidious

The Sith aren’t exactly the nicest guys. Even so, Darth Sidious is the pinnacle of evil. Throughout the Star Wars saga, he works to subjugate the galaxy under his own brand of order. It doesn’t matter how many people he has to kill. He gladly slaughters those who resist and enslaves those who don’t. What’s more is that he takes pleasure in his sadistic actions, laughing maniacally at his own misdeeds. Equally demented is how he treats his allies.

Sidious uses and loses people without remorse. He trains several Sith apprentices, imparting the secrets of the Dark Side and commanding them to carry out his Machiavellian schemes. Not only does he delicately play on their fears, but he sometimes indoctrinates them from a young age. Planting those seeds makes these students supremely loyal, but their master doesn’t hesitate to dispose of them once they outlive their usefulness. Keep in mind, it’s the Jedi who discourage attachment, yet this Sith Lord couldn’t be more selfish if he tried.^[9]

1 Everyone at James K. Polk Middle School

It pays to have a few pointers in your teenage years, especially in a school as unhinged as this. Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide is a chaotic show. That chaos comes down to cliques, bullies, assignments, and lunches. All these aspects are a cut above real life. Oddly enough, though, the greatest obstacle lies in the classroom.

James K. Polk Middle School has numerous nutcases on its staff. Examples include a woodshop teacher who cut off his own hand, a science teacher who performs explosive experiments, and a gym coach who loves seeing kids hurt each other. With these guys in charge, any moment can turn a routine class into a horror show. On the one hand, it ensures that kids pay attention. On the other, it risks scarring them for life. Then again, that’ll happen at some point anyway, so why not start early?^[10]

Being a teacher is, for many, a calling. Helping educate children is a tremendous responsibility. It’s not a job just anyone can do or, at least, it’s not a job just anyone should do. But sometimes beggars can’t be choosers and school boards hire whoever shows up with a diploma. That has led to several outrageous stories of teachers who went well beyond their job descriptions and ended up getting fired as a result.

Lest we forget, there’s also a flip side to this coin. Because of the influence of politics, parents, red tape and all around bad ideas, sometimes a good teacher will get fired for just an unbelievable reason. Let’s take a look.

10. A Teacher Was Fired for Writing a Blog on Homophones

What’s your opinion on homophones? Tim Torkildson was working as a social media strategist for the Nomen Global Language Center, an ESL school, in Utah. Part of his job was making blog posts about topics relevant to ESL students. That included explaining parts of the English language, like homophones. 

As anyone aware of homophones might expect, the blog post dealt with words that sounded similar but had different meanings. However, Torkildson’s boss may have neglected to read the blog or look up the meaning of the word. Torkildson was fired for posting something people might think supported “the gay agenda.”

According to Torkildson, the owner of the company called him into his office after he posted the blog and fired him. The owner refuted this later saying it was just because his blogs went off on tangents. That said, they still removed the blog post, and the owner said the concept was too complex for their students, anyway. 

9. A Substitute Teacher Was Fired for Getting Dating Advice

It’s important for teachers to separate their work life from their personal life. This can be hard because they may spend more hours per week with their students than with their own families. You can build a genuine closeness there and that leads to some teachers openly talking about their own lives. Not always a good idea, though.

A substitute teacher in New York, who clearly didn’t have that history of familiarity with her students to fall back on as an excuse, was fired for soliciting dating advice from fourth graders. According to reports, the 45-year-old woman had the children help her act out dating scenarios, where a student would play the potential male partner on a date and she would play herself. 

For what it’s worth, it wasn’t suggested she did anything unseemly with the students that involved anything sexual. But she was having them offer advice on who she should date between two men and which qualities in men were ones she should look for as she was dealing with a man she described as a jerk.

When the school board learned of what she’d done, she was let go.

8. A Florida teacher Was Fired for Having Students Write Obituaries Before an Active Shooter Drill

It’s hard to relate to the school experience kids have these days if you’re an adult. Most adults never had to deal with things like active shooter drills which are commonplace all across America now. Kids shouldn’t have to practice for how to avoid dying at school, but they do. One Florida teacher made it worse, though.

Students at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando were scheduled to have an active shooter drill. Psychology teacher Jeffrey Keene gave them an assignment to write their own obituaries ahead of time. His reasoning was that, in light of the drill, it would give the students a chance to reflect on what was important in their lives. Before the end of the day, he was fired.

The school said he was letting go for giving an inappropriate assignment about school violence. Keene said he didn’t regret giving the assignment because he felt it’s important to “talk real” to kids in that environment, and it’s something they were already talking about, anyway.

7. Ann Stewart Was Fired for Being a Witch 

History has not been kind to people accused of being witches. Whether they were hung or crucified or put on scales opposite a duck, they’re often presumed guilty until proven innocent. Even up through the 1970s they were being subjected to some harsh treatment even if that didn’t include murder.

Ann Stewart was fired from her position as a teacher in Tucson, Arizona in 1971 which led to an event that even has its own Wikipedia page called the Flowing Wells Witch Trial. Stewart was fired for teaching students about witchcraft and being a witch, being insubordinate, a poor influence on students,causing mental stress to other teachers and teaching outside of curriculum.

Stewart said she told no one she was a witch, just that she had the characteristics of one and the students ran with it. It was the principal of the school who made an ethics complaint about her and she was later dismissed indefinitely because of it.

On the bright side, Stewart was a tenured teacher, and the school did not follow proper procedure for dismissing her. That allowed Stewart to sue, and the courts forced the school to give her job back though it’s not clear how things progressed from there.

6. Oklahoma Teacher Was Fired After Taking Students on a Walmart Run

It’s no secret that teachers often buy a lot of supplies out of their own pocket for their classrooms. They also do a lot of extra work on their own time like prepping, planning and grading. But they’re still expected to make the most of class time with students. This was not something Oklahoma teacher Heather Cagle was good at.

In 2014, Cagle was fired after she took her students on a run to Walmart to get snacks. That already seems like a poorly thought out plan since getting snacks isn’t really part of any school day. But it gets worse!

Cagle only had a Honda Accord to get her and 11 students to the Walmart. Feel free to Google the interior of a Honda Accord if you want to guess how many people it holds. It’s not 11 plus a driver, so Cagle stuffed two of her students in the trunk and clown-carred the other nine into the Accord.

When the school board found out, they voted four to one to have her fired. 

5. A Norwegian Teacher Had Students Play with Her Blood

What’s the grossest thing you can imagine a teacher doing with their students that isn’t obviously, overtly criminal? If it involves tasting blood you’ve come to the right place.

A Norwegian teacher brought in a vial of her own blood for students, aged three to six, to taste, and taste it they did. Word is that as many as a dozen students had a sample after the teacher poured it onto a plate and started a Dracula buffet for them. 

The students were invited to touch the blood, which they did, and when one asked how to clean it off their finger the teacher just demonstrated licking it off her own finger, so the kids did the same.

The teacher was fired fairly soon after and tested for diseases like AIDS and hepatitis. By the time the story was published the results of the tests hadn’t come in but authorities tried to offer some reassurance by pointing out the chance for disease transmission was low.

4. A Teacher Was Fired For Letting Students Use a Classroom Closet for Sex

Every school has a “cool” teacher, the one who relates to students better than anyone else. Maybe they’re just young and more in touch, or maybe they’re really easy or let you watch movies in class. Or maybe they were like math and science teacher Quinton Wright who let kids have sex with each other in a classroom closet which is less cool and more horrible.

Wright, who also coached basketball, was letting students schedule times when they could go to the class and make use of the closet when no one else was there. It was sort of like an in-class Airbnb for, you know, high school sex. He even provided condoms. 

The teacher was caught when the mother of one of his 14-year-old students saw text messages between her son and the teacher. Her son was arranging timing for closet access. He was fired when the news came to light.

He also went on to face child molestation charges and ended up being released on a technicality since the detective who signed the warrant to arrest him let a different officer sign the paperwork.

3. A Teacher Was Fired for Giving Zeros to Students Who Didn’t Do Their Work 

Have you ever heard of a no zero policy? Some school boards adopted this as a way to separate behavior from academic accomplishment. The idea was that a late assignment or not handing in an assignment at all was behavior so it shouldn’t count against academic grades and that zeroes were counterproductive and destructive to a child’s academic growth. Some policies say any work handed in, no matter how bad, shows a “good faith” attempt and should automatically get a 50%. 

Canadian teacher Lynden Dorval was fired in 2014 for not complying with the school board’s no-zero policy. He wasn’t grading students unfairly; he was just giving zeros to students who hadn’t given him any work to grade. Despite how logical that may sound, because of the no-zero policy he was suspended and then fired for it.

Dorval appealed and won in court. He was given all the way he would have received during the time he was out of work and a boost to a pension for the same time, though he didn’t go back to teaching.

2. A Teacher Was Fired For Making OnlyFans Videos in Her Classroom

Sometimes what happens in a classroom can get a teacher fired even if it happens after hours and no students are involved. That’s what happened with Amanda Peer, a teacher from Thunderbolt Middle School in Arizona, when people discovered she was moonlighting on OnlyFans and filming porn in her classroom after hours.

Despite posting content under a fake name and blocking access to the entire state, someone still found the videos and reported her. While she technically wasn’t fired for what she’d done, she said she was forced to resign. In one statement she said she was given the option to resign so that nothing would be made public, but obviously that didn’t happen. That said, her husband was fired from his job as a substitute after appearing in several videos with her.

1. A Florida Teacher Was Fired For Arranging a Gang Beating

You never want to hear that a teacher has put hands on your child when you’re a parent. School violence already comes in far too many forms, the last thing the world needs is for teachers to be a part of the problem. Unfortunately, it happens and, in at least this one case, it went above and beyond what any normal person could imagine.

In 2014, Dru Dehart, a woman who had been teaching for years, went out of her way to set up a 7th grader to be bullied and physically beaten by a gang of other students. In non middle school terms, she put a hit on the kid.

The events were caught on camera and show Dehart wrangling six 8th graders and encouraging them to go after a 7th grade student who backtalked her. The boy apparently said he wished he could curse at a teacher earlier in the day. Dehart then instructed the half dozen older boys to “teach him a lesson.” After they held him down, punching and kicking him, the teacher allegedly told him he wasn’t “so tough now.”

Dehart later tried to claim that the boy threatened her, but the other students backed up their classmate’s account that all he did was lament not being able to curse her out. The school conducted an investigation after which they immediately fired her.

Teaching is often a calling, and the people who enter into the profession do so for noble reasons. After all, it isn’t for the excellent compensation and benefits, but that’s a conversation for a different list. Teachers work their butts off to ensure our children don’t grow up without a basic understanding of math, history, science, literature, and a ton of other subjects.

See Also: 10 Teachers Who Completely Lost Their Minds

Despite their hard work, there have been instances of teachers being fired for strange and often ridiculous reasons. Of course, there are times when a teacher should be and is fired, but more often than not, those issues are over sexual crimes, and they don’t belong anywhere near children. These ten teachers did nothing so horrendous as molesting a child; instead, they were canned for rather ridiculous reasons.

10Carla – Twerking At A Dance Competition

Carla was an elementary school teacher in a small Mexican town when she took a short vacation to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. If you know anything about Cabo, you know it’s a fun place to unwind, and that’s exactly what she did. While wearing a bikini, she entered and won a dance competition, earning herself a quick $260. The dancing involved twerking and moving in a provocative manner. The Internet being what it is, and Carla being an attractive woman, the video went viral, and within a few hours, it was making the rounds online.

Carla didn’t think anything of her participation in the competition, so she finished her vacation, packed her things, and returned home to Cuidad Obregon in northern Mexico. When she showed up to work, thinking everything was alright, she was pulled aside by her superiors and fired. Carla spoke about her termination in an interview with Reforma, a Mexican newspaper, “I was singled out as immoral, called immature and a whore. I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s a dance competition, and participating in it does not define me as a person. I’m not naked or having sex, much less consuming drugs or disrespecting someone.”

9 Monica Toro Lisciandro – Being A Lesbian

You would think that it’s none of anyone’s business what a person’s sexual orientation is, but when it comes to a place like Covenant Christian School in Palm Bay, Florida, it’s everyone’s business. Monica Toro Lisciandro was a seasoned theater teacher, and the director of the school’s plays, but on October 2nd, 2019, she was called into the school administrators’ office unexpectedly. Not knowing what was happening, she strolled in and was outed as a lesbian, which was something she kept private up to that point.

“They told me that someone called the school with allegations against me and said I was in a relationship with another woman, that I attend pride events and that I host ‘homosexual’ activities at the studio.” She was outed after spending 35 years in the closet, so she decided to admit who she was, and she was promptly fired for violating the school’s morality policy, but only after she was lectured about sin. Lisciandro is fighting the termination, but there’s not much hope she will be successful. As of early 2020, there are no federal or Florida state laws protecting LGBTQ people from termination.

8Professor Nicholas Goddard – Starring In Adult Films

Most people expect the teachers watching over their children to be of good moral judgment, and while it’s not necessarily immoral to film yourself having sex, few parents would be pleased to learn that their child’s teacher was a porn star. That’s what happened in 2016 when the University of Manchester learned that one of its professors had been involved in filming pornography a decade earlier. Goddard, an Oxford-educated Chemical Engineering teacher, had gone through a stressful divorce, and turned to porn as an outlet… as one does.

The university suspended him immediately, and if you search for Goddard online, you will find that the then-60-year-old professor appeared in dozens of films, often with women 40 years his junior under the pseudonym, “Old Nick.” As that was the age of most of his students, it’s no wonder the university took action when his pornography career came to light. With the suspension active, Goddard stepped down and resigned from his teaching position. He wasn’t technically fired, but he knew he eventually would be and opted to take control of the situation and return to pornography.

7Allison Wint – Saying The Word “Vagina”

Allison Wint was working as a substitute art teacher at a Michigan middle school when the topic of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work came up as a topic of conversation. Now, if you know anything about O’Keeffe’s portfolio, it’s that all of those flowers were representative of vaginas. It’s not some lurid conspiracy theory about her paintings; it’s a widely accepted interpretation of her work. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it seems the administrators at the Harper Creek Middle School will abide the teaching of her paintings, but not the utterance of the word “vagina.”

What she actually said, as she recalled to the Detroit Free Press, was, “Imagine walking into a gallery when [O’Keeffe] was first showing her pieces, and thinking, ‘Am I actually seeing vaginas here, am I a pervert? I’m either a pervert or this woman was a pervert.’” She said the word approximately ten times in the course of her instruction, though, “it was never in a vulgar capacity.” The following day, the school principal informed her that she violated the school’s policy of discussing reproductive health without prior approval and terminated her.

6 Viktoria Popova – Wearing A One-Piece Bathing Suit

Viktoria Popova was a teacher at School Number 7 in Omsk, Russia, until some photos of her were found online. The pictures didn’t show her doing anything naughty or nasty; she was simply wearing a bathing suit. According to the Siberian Times, Popova had posted pictures of herself modeling swimwear on her Instagram page, and for that, she was fired for “bringing her school and profession into disrepute.” The firing sparked outrage on social media, and within short order, more than 3,000 other women and teachers posted pictures online of themselves in bikinis and other swimwear with the hashtag, “teachers are people too.”

Interestingly, this was one situation where the social media outrage may have worked. When the swimsuit photos began posting all over the Internet, the Omsk Region government made an announcement that Popova could return to her job. The government issued a statement: “The question of Viktoria’s future employment has been decided: she may decide to work as a teacher either at this school or another one.” Though this was undoubtedly good news, other options popped up as a result of the controversial firing, as she was quickly courted by the modeling agency, Plus Size Omsk.

5 John Maxwell – Cleaning Up A Dangerous Spill

John Maxwell was a sixth-grade science teacher at Pound Middle School in Omaha who was loved by his students. They lovingly referred to him as Mr. M. One day, he brought a vial of mercury to school to show the students how the element remained in a liquid state and other interesting aspects of mercury. One such aspect became a problem when a student accidentally dropped the vial. It cracked, and a small amount of mercury spilled, which was approximately the size of a nickel or quarter. Knowing how dangerous mercury is if it makes contact with skin, Maxwell cleaned it up and continued with his lesson.

Unfortunately, he did the deed himself, and while he managed to take care of the problem right there and then, doing so violated the school’s policy. He was supposed to report the spill, and when the principal learned of the accident that Sunday after a concerned parent called him at home, he launched an investigation the next day. Eventually, the investigation warranted Mr. M’s termination from the school, and one student reported on Redditt that he was working another job in a different school, elsewhere in the state.

4 Michelle Hammack – Putting Out A Fire

When you’re working at a daycare center, it’s important to ensure the safety of all the children present. That’s especially true when a fire breaks out, which is exactly what happened at a Florida daycare center where Michelle Hammack worked. Not wanting to see a bunch of children die from smoke inhalation and… you know, being burned to death, Hammack rushed into action. She grabbed a fire extinguisher, and put out the flames, saving all the children in the room, and had the fire spread, possibly the entire daycare center. Was she lauded as a hero? No, she was fired a few hours later.

The reason she was terminated is incredibly baffling because her boss fired her for leaving the children in her room unattended. She did that so she could put out the fire, suggesting the daycare manager would have preferred she watch the fire spread from another room instead of putting it out. What’s worse is, there’s no ambiguity about why she was fired. Her boss explained her termination in an interview, saying, “I fired her only because she left her room. It’s not acceptable, and if anybody else does the same thing, I will fire again. I will fire them. No question.”

3 Diane Tirado – Giving Students 0% For No Work

Diane Tirado was a teacher in Port St. Lucie, Florida, where she had taught for 17 years. In 2018, she began teaching social studies to eighth-graders at West Gate K-8 School, but she wouldn’t last the entire year. In a bizarre rule the school imposed, Mrs. Tirado was fired for giving children a 0% when they failed to turn in an assignment. She has explained that the school has a rule that says, in red ink and all caps in the school handbook, “NO ZERO’S – LOWEST POSSIBLE GRADE IS 50%.” She disagreed with the rule and was given a termination letter on September 14th, 2018.

When she got the axe, she wrote a note on the board, which she snapped and shared on Facebook. Her note read, “Bye, kids. Mrs. Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life! I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50% for not handing anything in. <3 Mrs. Tirado.” Of course, with a story like this one, there are conflicting accounts. It was later revealed that Mrs. Tirado was terminated for putting a student in a choke-hold and slapping another. She denies those allegations and sought council to sew the school district.

2 Teri James – Getting Pregnant

Private religious schools often have morality and lifestyle clauses in their contracts. When a teacher or other employee is found to have broken one of those clauses, they are often terminated, but even when this happens, it’s usually unfair and outright ridiculous. For one teacher, it became a reality after she became pregnant by her fiance. Teri James was employed at San Diego Christian College, and she did sign a lifestyle contract, which, in part, said that she must refrain from premarital sex, as that was the school’s standing as it related to living a supposedly holy lifestyle.

It was all going well and good for Ms. James, right up to the point she became pregnant. That wasn’t something she could hide, and as a result, the school terminated her for having premarital sex. That’s not the end of the story, though; when she left the school, the job was offered to the man who impregnated her. That man being her fiance who also engaged in premarital sex! This was a perfect example of the disparity of treatment for women and men when it comes to these so-called lifestyle morality clauses in contracts. Women are often fired over wearing bathing suits while men aren’t, and seeing as men can’t become pregnant, James was singled out.

1 Jennifer Mitts – Taking Care Of Her Students

Jennifer Mitts was a teacher at Red Bank High School in Tennessee who cared for her students. On two separate occasions, Mitts did the unthinkable: she helped her students when there was no other option. Her initial foray into helping out a kid who was desperately in need of her assistance came when a 17-year-old-girl, who was pregnant, was running a high fever and had pneumonia. Mitts drover her to the Emergency Room so she could receive treatment, and the student has since credited Mitts with saving her and her baby’s lives.

The second time, she had a student who was very sick, so she drove her to the Emergency Room, and because the student had no medical insurance, she paid the expenses out of her own pocket! Most people would label her a hero, and move on, but the school district went another route. Unfortunately, America is a highly litigious society, which made her actions dangerous for the school district. Despite the fact that she went above and beyond, she was forced to resign over the two incidents. She’s not without her supporters, and after teaching for 14 years, those supporters came out to petition for the school to hire her back, but the principal has thus far refused.