Tuesday #8: Firing a Teacher

I interviewed Thad Spring on March 12th about how to fire a bad teacher. He told me that simply, the most important and beneficial thing you can do is have policies in place before hand that give you an objective basis on which to take action. If you do not have this, taking evaluation from people actually in the class, on an anonymous basis allows you to give feedback to the teacher without making them your thoughts. Hopefully they respect the opinion of the people they are teaching, and if a significant number of his or her students think they are not in the right place it may be easier for them to step down.
He said that often when people are approached about stepping down they have the attitude that if they do not fill this position no one will, and it has been his experience that this is almost never true. If this is a situation where no one else is passionate enough to take over this ministry, there is a good chance that this ministry is not going to be around for much longer. In almost all situations, someone is able to step in and do a better job, which is a relief to the pastor, the people involved, and even the former teacher.