hey all, I am at a point in my plot where I need two of my MCs high school teachers to be either suspended or fired so that I can introduce two new characters (relevant to the plot) as their replacements. Do you have any ideas as to what would a be plausible but not totally ridiculous reason?
They could be suspended/fired for a harsh disciplinary action they invoke on a student(s) . Perhaps an illegal sexcapade with a student(s). There was a case about a teacher making her students wear an animal cone if they were late, or acted out in class. Though the students kind of enjoyed wearing the cone of shame, despite it being unethical and immoral on the part of the teacher. I don't think the teacher was ever charged with legal ramifications in the end, but they certainly deserved at the very least a suspension for disciplinary action of degrading/humiliating students. Hope this helps.
Is it mandatory that they be suspended/fired rather than just quitting for some reason? (Spouse moving, quit to go back to school for another degree, pregnant and decided not to return after maternity leave....) I ask particularly because TWO teachers being fired at essentially the same time, without that involving a layoff (and a layoff is implausible because they're replaced) sounds like a large chunk of drama, and do you want the extra drama? If you do, great; if you don't, there are more plausible reasons for teachers to leave.
I guess I should explain a bit more. It will later emerge that the replacement teachers were the reason the others were suspended/fired. They wanted to get to the MC so they needed to get the other teachers out of the way. A bit dramatic I know, but the new teachers only just learned about the MC and have no other way of reaching her.
Suspended/fired still feels problematic because there are elements of proof. Trying to get the teachers to voluntarily leave doesn't need to involve proof. Are we talking about the teacher replacements being in some organization that has lots of contacts in lots of places? In that case, they could have been finding ways to lure all sorts of teachers away--arranging for this one to be awarded that scholarship they've been wanting, for that one's spouse to be transferred, for another one to encounter a serious allergen and actually die, and so on, and so on. Eventually they get rid of three or four or five and get two of the jobs. People marvel about the big turnover this year.
How about the teachers were taped having sex in a car (both are married so they are also cheating on their spouses) and the tape gets uploaded to a porn site? Then it could be revealed that the two new replacements were the ones that tracked down the couple and videoed them and uploaded it to the internet, and later called the media to make them aware of the situation?
A much simpler and less dramatic solution is that the teacher were caught "fudging" answers on standardized test to make their own performance appear better. This actually happened and 11 teachers were convicted and fired. It would also make it possible for the new characters to be the ones to cause the problem if they were to somehow get their hands on the tests and fill in the empty bubbles. With something like excessive discipline/sex scandal the original teachers would actually have to do something wrong that may be out of character. It's much easier to believe a "harmless" crime in an attempt to improve their own performance than some highly improbably scandal for the sake of scandal. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/04/02/11-former-atlanta-educators-convicted-in-standardized-test-cheating-scandal
You can have tortuous and bland, or salty, bedevilled, sexual maniacs rutting in a school car park. ... Probably some kind of administrative scheming over 550 pages might be the greater challenge of the two, and gets my vote.
Just let me add to mine, that I know some teachers and, cheating on spouses is very common place in schools so it makes the idea very plausible.
http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/the-biggest/13-careers-with-the-highest-probability-of-cheaters/?view=all
http://www.oxygen.com/very-real/8-insane-social-media-posts-that-got-people-fired 2 & 6 are teachers fired for Social Media posts. 7 is a buss driver that was fired over a social media post.
I second @ChickenFreak If the goal is the reveal that they were removed intentionally there are plenty of other ways to handle this besides them being fired/suspended. Technically you don't even have to make both be caused by the twist people here. Example. Maybe one is pregnant and was getting ready to call off anyhow for her a while to get ready to deliver her baby? Another good solution is in your case aren't they in a cold area? What if they people poured water on his driveway? Which froze became back ice, caused him to trip and break his leg. So he called out of school? As an example. The real trick I see here, is how did the new people make sure they were going to be the replacements? Another thought. If they are connected to the school already. They could just ask a teacher to take time off for them to be called in. Imagine this. A sub who is actually friends with a teacher asks the teacher to take a vacation so they will be called in. There are probably some more solutions here too that don't involve them being fired. The reason I suggest you avoid that is my understanding(which is admittedly flawed) getting a teacher fired is hard. They kind of have to personally mess up. I mean, high school especially may be filled with people pulling pranks. So your villains here doing something could just be viewed as a student prank. So I don't see how you can reasonable convience a nice teacher to do something so awful that they get fired instantly for it. And the underline goal doesn't really require any harm to them or the job, just the temporarly removal of them from school. Breaking into a teachers home and spiking their milk with X-Lax so they become sick and call out infinitely easier. I suppose in that case it is only temporary, but I am sure there are ways to poison someone in a much more effective way, to cause them to call out longer but without actually harming them in the long run.
Hacking social media and sending inappropriate messages, pics or content would be a problem for the teachers, leading to at least suspension (with our without pay) until the situation was resolved. Drugs on campus, or even firearms planted might work as well. My question is: Why would the board of education hire the replacement teachers? Are they reliable substitutes? Are they certified in the necessary areas? Why would they be hired ahead of other qualified candidates? Larger districts, with unions, would have set procedures for filling positions. Filling positions is usually one where there are many applicants for openings, even in the middle of the school year. It can be (and usually is--in my experience) very competitive, if not structured.
This is another question that's going to depend on where your story is set. In some places, teachers are members of a very powerful union and it's very difficult to fire them. Other places, the unions aren't nearly as strong. You may want to go for a private school, if you're looking for easy firing. Much more political, much less teacher protection (unless the teachers are good at politics).
In the cases that you are talking about, where teachers are hard to be fired, they get sent to basically what you would call a detention for teachers. they get sent to sit in a room for 8 hours a day and do nothing, but they still get their pay checks until the issue they are dealing with gets resolved. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/31/the-rubber-room
Well, if they are intending to replace the teachers, I would consider it a fair assumption that they knew this structure and knew they were next in line. Though, that gives me another idea. @dreamersky1212 If the end goal is for the "new teacher" to be close to the main character, I would assume there are many other ways they can self-insert themselves into the story. Teacher is a nice choice since it is daily interaction, but for that reason it is also a hard choice. Anyone that is going to the effort to remove someone from their job in-order to self-insert themselves into that role is going to be doing some research on the MC. Meaning they aren't in the dark, but that means there are tons of other ways to self-insert themselves that may be much easier. They could become friends with the MC's mom for example. Which by extension gives them another reason for interaction. This in many ways might even be superior. School is limited daily action, or at least without drawing attention, it also requires them to do work to maintain the cover. While "visiting mom" may not be a daily interaction it can be much more unlimited action. I mean something as simple as perhaps having a solution to a recent problem. "Mom! My violin strings are broken!" MC shouts! "Maybe next week dear, we are a bit low on funds today," mom replies. "Oh?" the spy says. "I play the violin. I would be glad to give you a few strings. What do you play? Would you like to play together?" Bam! You have instant cause for a high amount of interaction. It also has a lot more drama possibilities in the sense that this kind of set up is more personal and as such will feel more like a betrayal when discovered. Not only that, technically the spy doesn't even have to know how to play the violin. Something like. "I just started, but I am pretty horrible at it. Free strings for a few lessons? Sound like a fair trade?" That works just as well. I don't know if there is any reason this idea doesn't work, but if there is. I would be glad to hear it/brain storm more.
Depends on the nature of the villains I guess. If they're like the mafia, they could probably just threaten the teachers and get them to resign for no stated reason. If it's a government, then the teachers could be brought into a back room and told that it's vital to national security. If it's a corrupt school administrator, then the teachers could probably be bullied into quitting, but not on short notice.
I agree with @Matt E, it depends on what methods they have. It would also depends on their personalities, are they likely to be cruel about it or get rid of them as efficiently and cleanly as possible? How ruthless are they? It also depends on whether the teachers are caught in a scandal or just chucked. If they are in a scandal, is it real in any way? And if so, what might they be likely to be caught doing by the agents? As always, the rest of the story and the nature of the characters often provide you with good guidelines for what fits. Like Michael Corleone killing the dons at the end of the Godfather, by that point in the story it's unlikely he's going to be peaceful anymore, it's not surprising. Not saying they'll be one simple option but thinking about the context will narrow it down.
Hi, If you want something topical and not salacious how about having their lesson plans changed. Picture little Johnny coming home one day - "Mom we learned about creationism in science class today! And history we learned that the nazi's were really the good guys!" Cheers, Greg.
What teacher could possibly think they would get with that? Especially the Nazi thing. and how the agents be involved in that?
Back in high school, I actually had two teachers drop off the map at the school I attended: 1. One of them was fired because she was talking badly about her students on Facebook, and also didn't have her profile filtered to the public. One of the students saw it, got offended, reported her, and we saw her go away shortly after that. She was a devil anyway so no one was surprised. 2. Another got fired because he had hidden anger issues he managed very well, right up until one of the students trying to push his buttons started saying all sorts of nasty stuff about both his wife and his daughter. He snapped and threw a chair at the kid, and nearly knocked him out when it struck his head. I've also heard stories of teachers getting fired for: 3. Openly flirting with students, usually seniors or those close to or above 18, but sometimes younger. 4. Talking badly about the school in a public manner. 5. Alcoholism/ Various substance abuse issues getting in the way of their work. 6. Actively bullying students they didn't like when they felt they went to far, outside of school. 7. Doing incredibly dangerous science experiments that could have or did injure students. 8. Masturbating in their class when no one was there, just to have a kid walk in on them. 9. Similarly, watching porn at work. Basically, anything that would get someone fired from a normal office space, applies to teachers too.
Depends on where you are. Where I am, with a very strong teachers' union - yeah, knocking a student out would have done it. The rest? Maybe a suspension? A transfer, a series of warnings with a requirement for additional training... that sort of thing. But for the OP's purpose, it may not matter. We don't need these teachers fired, we just need them gone, it sounds like. So maybe they were forced to accept a transfer to another school, maybe they were suspended, or whatever. A full firing would take a year at least, up here, so if you're looking at a similar jurisdiction, I'd gloss over the specifics and just have the teachers packing up and going, with no real explanation of their fate.
Well, doing something criminal is usually a really good way for a teacher to get fired. So maybe they get caught with weed in a state with really strict weed laws. Or they get thrown in jail for something that happened outside of work. I think that would work for your purposes well, because most teachers have two personas: A work one, and a home one. I've known teachers that have gotten flak for being a wife beater, for instance, even though they seemed really kind at school.
