It seems like every school has at least a few of those stories about that one teacher who happened to get fired from their job for a straight-up wild reason. From comical and seemingly innocent ones, to incidents that are pretty much objectively shocking and almost hard to believe—school halls have seen it all.
Considering that, no wonder this Reddit thread that started with the user u/MrDev16 asking the community "why did that teacher get fired from your school?" quickly went viral and gathered thousands of responses. With that being said, Bored Panda is inviting you to read through the list compiled of the craziest and most interesting teacher-getting-fired stories we found in this viral thread. As always, feel free to share your own stories down in the comment section.
More info: Reddit
Source: Wikipedia
#1
Our beloved teacher, Mr Maune, had worked there for 29 years without incident and was one of the best teachers there. His classroom was always a laugh riot. He was the best roaster and encourages us to roast him properly. He never failed to get us motivated and a lot of us owe our career inspiration from him.He was fired because he had jokingly smacked a student on the back of his head for making a stupid comment. It was like something out of a sitcom and all of us expected it and loved it. Yet one student, who was new at the school, was culture shocked by this. He thought it was strange but hilarious. He told his mom off handedly and his mom became the Karen. Nevermind that the student was the teacher's godson, no physical contact was allowed says the Karen. He was suspended with pay for 3 months pending investigation then was let go because the Karen twisted the story and it blew up around the school. A year later, teacher won both the lawsuit against the school and libel case against the Karen with her son being one of the key witnesses.
We still keep in contact and roast him for getting rich over smacking kids around.
#2
My math teacher was a volunteer first responder (in NY), she left school to help out during 9/11 and was fired for not showing back up for two weeks.#3
One of my high school teaches was caught on To Catch a Predator.#4
My AP English teacher got high on painkillers, broke into someone’s house, and ate their soup.#5
Our new band teacher was a young guy, fresh out of college. His first year teaching and he embezzled about a thousand dollars from the band’s funds. He got arrested and his possible future career ruined for a thousand bucks.Edit: Probably my favorite part of the story was that he went by the name Mr. E. So once he was gone, the ruthless band kids referred to him as Mr. Embezzlement.
#6
Oh boy where to start. Elementary school nurse was fired for taking the kids’ medications. HS band teacher slept with a 15 yr old. Swim coach left a hotel that he was at with his mistress drunk and killed someone with his car. My high school had like 400 students.#7
Explained Elasticity by pulling the Bra strap of a girl.#8
One of the elementary school teachers at the district I went to got arrested for making his class worship him like he was a cult leader. He was totally bonkers.#9
A co-worker teacher got fired two weeks in the new semester, when instead of uploading a video related to his subject, he instead accidentally continued a previously paused hardcore lesbian scene on the big interactive screen.The computer he was using was slow and crappytoo so he couldn't quickly exit the video. It went on for a good 30 seconds before someone pulled the plug on the screen around the same time he lobbed the laptop about 30 feet across the class.
#10
They found out he was gay. He was a chaperone for the 8th grade east coast trip, and parents of boys got all up in arms that he had access to their hotel rooms. No student has ever accused him of anything inappropriate.#11
Dating a 16 year old female student - he was also a PE teacherEDIT: I should clarify that he did do jail time and is on the sex offenders register
#12
Two teachers, they got caught having sex in a classroom#13
My sociology teacher in high school was fired for throwing an chalkboard eraser at a sleeping students head. He was a great teacher, and always did this in good humor. Obviously not a great idea in retrospect, but we all knew that we could get away with sleeping in his class if we didn't mind getting an eraser upside the head if he noticed. I heard he was fired a few years after I graduated high school, and that kinda bummed me out.Probably deserving of a reprimand of some sort, but not getting fired.
#14
My AP chem teacher had an affair with the principal. Principal got fired too. I felt bad for her. They didn’t do anything on school property, and it didn’t impact her performance in the classroom. Also, the school wasn’t able to find a qualified teacher to replace her halfway through the year, so we were all fuc*ed come test time at the end of the year. Not one of us passed that AP test.#15
Man do I got a story for this one. I apologize for the length but its worth a read.So I got a job as a PE teacher/coach at a K-12 school. It was the beginning of my second year and rumors were going around about a teacher having a relationship with a student. I just thought it was a rumor and moved on. A few days later we have a cross country meet and i have to get to the school at 5:30 am to leave for the meet. I noticed another car in the parking lot, which was gated closed, and no one around. This has never happened so I called one of the other coaches and he was not sure and found it strange. I dont think much of it and go about my day. We get back from the meet around noon and the car is still there.
Turns out it is one of the high school teachers car that was left from the day before. I thought it was car troubles and decided to not think much of it. I arrive back to school on Monday and boy howdy did sh*t hit fan. The car was left at over the weekend not because of car troubles but much. Much. MUCH worse reasons.
The car was left over the entire 48 hour weekend because the teacher who owned the car had a mental breakdown in class, couldn't control it and had his sister, who also worked at the school, take him home. He had a breakdown because his gf broke up with him. His gf... was HIS STUDENT. So once the story was confirmed the police came and searched his classroom. His classroom had empty liquor bottles in the desk and his room was a mess.
The teacher was fired and that was the last I heard of him. However, the story doesn't end there folks. Because the sister of the convicted teacher was behind everything. Helped them arrange dates, meet ups, and covered for him to keep the story hidden. She was fired a week later.
I left the education world after that semester and never looked back.
#16
Kindergarden teacher would dig furrows into kids arms with her long, sharp nails by basically holding their arms real tightly. She did this if she caught them misbehaving during recess. It happened to me when I was running when I shouldn't have, I think ( this was nearly 40 years ago). I showed the principle my arm as he was walking out one day and she was fired on the spot. I think I was 4 at the time and didn't realize exactly what I did at the time.#17
Arrested by the FBI for credit card fraud. It was a few months after the arrest when the reason why he disappeared came out in the open.#18
He didn't come to parent teacher interview night. The next day, he was late for class and crashed his pickup into a brick sign outside the school. Cops showed up obviously and allegedly he blew twice the legal limit. He called the principal 'a c*nt' as he was taken away.#19
She was always drunk, and drinking during class. She would leave us to cry in the bathroom.#20
She had fallen off the wagon and was drinking a lot to the point where it was affecting her memory. We kept doing the same lecture on density in sixth grade science for a month, until one my classmates decided to ask another teacher about it. From there she went to rehab.If anyone wants more context. She was our homeroom and science teacher. She was very nice, and married to our assistant principal, so she had a little bit more leeway. While she was able to remain sober for a while, she eventually passed away do the effects of her addiction a few years after this. She never seemed like a bad teacher, but she was always stressed to the absolute maximum, always felt like she was working from behind, and generally struggling to keep up. You know, the traditional tail end of the "functioning" addict lifestyle.
#21
He was playing his guitar for students at my elementary school. He had been warned before, but the kids enjoyed it so he continued to play it for them anyways.One day, the assistant principal was lurking in the hallway and wandered to his classroom. She saw him playing his guitar and fired him on the spot. A whole lot of students were crying that day because he was an amazing guy.
Edit: More information, this took place in a small, rural town in Georgia back in the early 2000s. He wasn’t the music teacher, he just used to bring his guitar and play songs randomly on some days and the kids enjoyed it. He’d been warned multiple times by his higher ups (why? IDK. He was a great teacher). He thought that before the break, he could play something for us one last time during the last week of school. It just happened to be the worst possible timing, while the assistant principal was walking through the halls. He didn’t come back to teach at our school when classes started again. If I recall, he got a job teaching at a different school.
#22
He pushed some kid who hit him against a wall#23
He straight up didn't show up to work one Monday, didn't call in to arrange a sub or anything. He ghosted the school for a whole week and then tried to come in the following Monday like nothing happened.We also had a 5th grade teacher overdose on meth but I honestly don't know if she got fired or resigned. It didn't happen at school.
#24
One was such an unlikeable teacher they were asked to retireOne sent someone elses di*k pics to a students mom
One robbed a bank
#25
She embezzled thousands of dollars from various club funds. There were also rumors of her sleeping with students, but the administration never bothered to look into that.#26
Coach/History teacher of course. First off some of the early warning signs we all should have noticed first.He showed up the first day of school and told us he was a youth minister and that we would always see him in long sleeves and pants because he had tattoos and he regrets them. That he didn't want to accidentally encourage any of us to get some too. Two weeks later he is in shorts and polo shirts showing off multiple looney toons tattoos.
He taught 6th grade US History out of a textbook. Word for word. We did multiple chapters a day and were expected to do every assignment listed for each chapter. This averaged about 3 hours of work a day. In 6th grade. He was the only class that year to regularly assign homework and he received multiple parent complaints about the workload.
He would often leave the class alone to read chapters. He would then go out to the hall or parking lot to make out with his girlfriend who would arrive randomly.
He was the middle school track coach and thus spent a lot of time in and around the middle school locker rooms. Too much time....
He took photos of the kids running for the yearbook. These pictures eventually made it onto his work computer desktop. Then his phone background. Only the girls though.
But the final straw that got us out of his care. He showed up to a middle school basketball game drunk and tried to yell at the ref.
He was fired that day and not allowed back on campus.
#27
Had a history teacher get fired for going off syllabus and spending time on the pre-Judaic flood stories.One of maybe two reasons I'm obsessed with Mesopotamian/ Anatolian/ Egyptian history now.
#28
He “accidentally” made a really racist joke thinking the class would think it was funny (they didn’t ofc) so he was fired that day.#29
There was a tornado in our area. The college I was in was leasing a multi-floor office building. Alarms were sounding outside, and people were retreating into the stairwells for safety.Teacher blew it off and said people were just making it up to be funny.
Learned when I got home that the tornado was right outside the window I was sitting next to.
Reported him to the faculty. So did others. He was gone the following week.
#30
I heard a rumor that my favorite teacher from 9th grade got fired when I was in 10th grade because he left his class unattended#31
Had a teacher in hs, he taught English and was the jv fb coach he was a good man and well liked. His wife worked directly below him teaching geography and pregnant, her family was known in the area for owning an apple orchard. They had their dream. The school officers daughter started saying she slept with him he denied but was promptly fired. He had a mental breakdown his wife divorced him last I know he was working at a tgi fridays. His wife remarried and had another kid. The girl who lied came forward after and said she lied but it was to late he remained fired life ruined, she and her father transfered and moved out of town. That girl ruined his life and got no real consequences. Tragic.#32
A teacher gave alcohol to some students in a field trip out of the country, they students were 16-17 and they asked if the could order beer, later they took photos and it was all over facebook.This was years after I graduated but rumors spread quickly.
#33
Teachers at my high school got fired on a pretty regular basis (principal was a narcissist) but here's one of the rare ones we actually heard about.The school went into lockdown because someone was seen hopping over the fence onto campus at the start of the school day. Freshman geography teacher locked his door, didn't control his class, wouldn't let one of the students back in, and jumped at every sound he heard.
For comparison, the sub in senior literature next door didn't have a key to lock the door, but grabbed the handle, got on the floor, and planted both his feet on the frame so that the door couldn't be opened. I think the dude was a linebacker for football, too.
#34
He got arrested driving through Nevada over the summer with 5 lbs of weed in his car that he'd bought in a California. He had no intention on telling the district and we only found out because a news reporter from the town he was arrested in contacted our superintendent for a quote on the matter. He was let go immediately.#35
He was a wonderful friendly and handsome teacher. This girl had a crush. Some bi*ch told the teacher about this girl’s crush. The teacher felt awkward and avoided her eyes from then on. Girl got hurt. Complained to the principal that he was being creepy with her. All the heads( which included my father) were called for a meeting with him. He got sick of defending himself. Shouted:’fu*k you’ll’ and left the school. They fired him before he could hand out his resignation.Edit: to clarify some things- it was one of the best schools and all the richie rich kids studied there (i studied because my father was a faculty, otherwise we don’t have so much money) and hence teachers were dealt with very harshly. On one occasion, a teacher was fired only because it seemed on the cameras that he hit a boy hard. The parents complained and he was fired the next day, without listening to him at all. My father knew that he just patted him, but the kid was spoiled and he lied, also the teacher was a junior one.
I mentioned my father so that you’ll know how i know what happened in the meeting. He just knew that a girl has complained and now they are called. Also the teacher we are talking about was EVERY student’s favourite. So other teachers were jealous and they all assumed he is very lenient and encourages us to not follow other teachers and stuff, so it might have made it hard for him to say he stayed professional always.
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