We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share the wildest and sometimes most bizarre reason why a teacher they know was fired. Some responses proved the firing was absolutely warranted, and other times the firing was a bit ridiculous. Here are 23 of the most shocking stories:
Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
1. "In the middle of class, out of nowhere, one of my teachers squatted on the floor, lifted her skirt, and peed on the floor without stopping teaching or acknowledging this in any way."
—Anonymous
2. "I was told not to fail any student – even if they did not do any work. I was also told not to teach the health curriculum that was approved by the district and only to teach what the principal said to because, in her words, 'the district makes suggestions, I decide what is taught in my school.' I refused and quoted state statutes that require the course content and was let go two days later."
—Anonymous
3. "A teacher was fired for taking a shit on a student’s car. It turns out that he did this because the car had a Black Lives Matter bumper sticker."
—Anonymous
4. "I worked in an affluent district. I refused to change a student's grade. Upon returning to work in the fall, I uncovered a systematic process wherein both the principal and an assistant principal were changing student's grades. (It's illegal in my state)."
"How many grades were changed you might ask? Upwards of 700. One student was given an A in a class he'd never even attended. This was the grandson of a school board member. After 10+ yrs I was deemed 'ineffective' and forced out."
—Anonymous
5. "My seventh grade history teacher was an excellent teacher and a great person overall. She got fired for teaching us about the Holocaust."
"Her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and it was a very personal and important topic to her. But one of my classmates complained that she was making 'all Christians look bad,' and the school board barely even listened to her defense. It was heartbreaking. (Incidentally, the classmate who complained about her was later expelled for drawing a swastika on a Jewish girl’s locker.)"
—Anonymous
6. "A teacher was fired because he refused to address a student, a trans man, with his chosen name. He continued to address him by his former dead name. He didn't accept his firing and went to court and ultimately lost."
7. "I’m the teacher. I was an adjunct professor at 29 years old and got pulled into the Department Head’s office one day before class. Apparently I had been 'hanging out with students and drinking with them outside of school' and it was a complete no-no. I denied the allegations because it simply DID 👏🏼 NOT 👏🏼 HAPPEN. 👏🏼"
"He proceeds to show me screenshots of a student’s Instagram. A student spotted me at my favorite local dive bar and started snapping pictures of me dancing and drinking within their viewpoint. I was completely unaware they were even there, but the caption literally said 'hanging out with Miss N—— 😂 yeahhh she cool.'"
8. "A teacher announced that she named her left boob 'Betty' and her right boob 'Dorothea' and claimed that Betty and Dorothea didn’t get along. It turns out she invented this whole backstory for why they had a feud (it involved a boyfriend) and revealed that they both had mental health issues and childhood trauma, complicating the situation. About her breasts! And for the record, she was SUPPOSED to be teaching us about geometry."
—Anonymous
9. "My eighth grade science teacher was fired for downloading his vacation photos from a nudist resort to his school computer."
10. "A few years ago, I was working with a guy that was highly educated. His PhD was in bio-engineering and when his project ran out of funding, he decided to teach. It was apparent from day one that he was in way over his head. His own children were a mess, and he had a huge temper."
"His inability to cope sent him spiraling out of control on several occasions. I taught in the room next door and heard chaos and yelling on multiple occasions. The straw that broke the camel’s back involved an incident with a student. Apparently, the kid was being defiant and was asked to go to the principal’s office. Instead of waiting for back up, he took the kid’s bag and threw it out the door of his classroom and down the hall. Then he pulled the kid out of his chair and dragged him out into the hall. Once the kid and his bag were in the hall, he shut the door behind them and the kid’s phone was still on his desk. So, the kid is in the hall, banging on the door and disrupting all of our classes. When the principal showed up, he escorted the teacher and kid down to the office. The kid was reprimanded and the teacher was dismissed shortly afterwards."
—Anonymous
11. "In the US we know sick leave and things like that are horrible. My math teacher contracted meningitis and took as much time as she could off. Well, she still was not feeling well, so for a few days she was literally lying on the floor. I don't know how administration found out but she was replaced."
—Anonymous
12. "My elementary school music teacher was fired after teaching the song 'Till the Cows Come Home' by Lucille Bogan to fourth graders. Look up the lyrics and you’ll understand why."
—Anonymous
13. "A kindergarten teacher at my kid’s school brought brownies for her class. Only problem is, she had gotten the brownies she made for them and weed brownies she kept around her house mixed up. Long story short, she was fired for giving pot to 5 year olds."
—Anonymous
14. "A male teacher at my middle school walked into the girls’ bathroom to dress code a girl for having her bra strap showing. Thank god he was fired!"
—Anonymous
15. "It was our final year in our Bachelor for a journalism degree. The final year included a practical experience semester, during which we had to work as journalists for a whole semester... It was already stressful and the university decided to hire a new professor who was in charge of our practical work assessment. From day one he was really mean to all the students and was making sexist comments toward women who studied journalism. He would stop the entire lesson and make us stare at the people who came to class late, be arrogant with us, and treat us like we are nothing, and he would always mention how successful his career is."
"One day we went to class and the other professors informed us that he was sick. A few days went by and he was nowhere. After two weeks, one of our classmates found out that he was fired and the reason for that was that the university received a lot of complaints from students about the professor's mean behavior."
—Anonymous
16. "This was in middle school. It was the end of the year and as the entire school was taking their end of year finals, three local sheriff deputies stormed into the school. Apparently, the math teach had been dealing drugs to the local high school kids and parents."
"She was placed in cuffs and escorted off school grounds. This was over 10 years ago but I'm pretty sure she served less than 6 months in prison and got 100's of hours of community service. The school had no idea this was going to happen and her husband left her pretty soon after the whole incident. No idea where she is now, but hopefully not teaching."
—Anonymous
17. "A teacher at my small town school was arrested at a strip club for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after entering the club's women's room (gross, dude). A couple of years later I ran into him working the valet at a chain restaurant in Boston."
—Anonymous
18. "My health teacher in middle school got fired for teaching us that only sexually active women get periods and that if you menstruate too much, your uterus could somehow melt away(?). Fortunately, all of the girls knew that she wasn’t telling the truth, but it’s disturbing to imagine some impressionable kid believing all that."
—Anonymous
19. "A teacher mentioned that her mom lived in Palestine. This was interpreted by some weird parents as her trying to indoctrinate children in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and she was fired."
—Anonymous
