By Andrea Arens

We’ve all had a teacher in our educational career who rubbed us the wrong way or we just didn’t mesh with. For every teacher that wasn’t a favorite, there was a dozen that were. I had an experience with a teacher who refused to pronounce my name correctly for an entire year, no matter how many times I tried to correct him. Eventually, he told me he’d called me what ever he wanted, and I told him I’d call him an expletive. I wound up spending some time in the principal’s office.

Yet, I never encountered any teacher like one of my son’s teachers in seventh grade. It started with ridiculous packets of work only for her not to grade them. Then it progressed to her taking personal phone calls in class, referring to her husband in an unkind manner, and her telling the class she had no energy for them. It further progressed to her singling out students, like my son, and telling him he was a loser, he would never amount to anything in life, screaming at him to get his attention when he tuned her out, and threatening him after class if his mother emailed again. Several times he burst into tears, and she sent him out of class to the social worker when he didn’t have an IEP, and then wouldn’t give him the work he missed.

It escalated to a sit down with the principal and this teacher, only for her to tell me I was crazy, it was a bad class, and my son needed an IEP. I quickly informed her that I have a master’s degree in special education and had been teaching for more than 10 years; if my son needed an IEP, I wouldn’t hesitate to ask.

Her behavior in the classroom improved for a month at best but escalated more after Christmas break. Living in a small town and with my son begging me not to email again, I held out until almost the end of the year. I eventually emailed the superintendent requesting a formal complaint be filed in her personnel file. I had a meeting; my information with dates, times, and quotes was received. I was told it’s nearly impossible to discipline a tenured teacher but that something would be done.

My son and I moved on.

Unfortunately, year after year I heard of more stories just like ours from encounters with this same teacher – countless stories of disrespect, rude comments, and downright bullying remarks to students. Last school year, that same teacher took a straw full of water from her own water bottle and dribbled it in a student’s ear and on his face to wake them up, only after she slammed a book next to his face. A formal complaint was filed by the parents with the Will County Regional Office of Education, and a police report was filed. The punishment? A two day suspension.

In the midst of that controversy, it was discovered no disciplinary actions were ever taken against that teacher. No formal complaints were ever filed, despite my request to do so, along with all the other parents who had called, emailed, had meetings, or had their child transferred out of her class.

A recent Facebook post regarding that same teacher had 20-year-olds recalling their very negative experiences with her, along with about 50 other parents of students all sharing how they have or currently are suffering and their exasperation at how no action has been taken after all these years.

They’re not wrong.

The State Journal-Register published an article on January 14, 2008, titled “Teachers get fired, but don’t leave the classroom,” by Scott Reeder. In that article, Reeder cited an investigation titled “The Hidden Costs of Tenure” and found:

•“Out of 95,000 tenured teachers in Illinois, an average of only seven are fired each year.”

•“84 percent of Illinois school districts have never given any tenured teacher a bad job evaluation during an 11-year period.”

•“Over a five-year period, school districts that retained attorneys and attempted to fire tenured teachers spent an average of $219K per case in legal fees alone.”

The article goes on to mention the tenured teachers who were fired did not have their licenses revoked. It also mentioned that in 2008, DCFS had investigated 3,871 complaints against educators but only 323 were found credible.

Essentially, tenured union teachers, could keep their jobs and definitely keep their licenses to teach.

It’s no wonder my son’s former teacher still is treating children terribly in her class. There’s no repercussions for her actions.

As a private school teacher who teaches children with severe emotional and behavioral disabilities for the last 18 years, I find that a disgrace to the profession.