Have you ever seen a teacher get fired?

Our high school principal was obsessed with test scores. Every year he'd give this big speech about how our school ranking depended on them. Nobody really cared except him.
Ms. Winters was our science teacher - young, with bright sweaters. She made biology actually interesting, bringing in real sheep hearts and letting us dissect them. Everyone loved her classes.
One week before state testing, our principal announced a new "study camp" - basically forcing kids with low practice scores to stay after school for three hours each day. No sports, no clubs, just drilling test questions.
Three students in my class were devastated. Maria had swimming championships, Tyler had been practicing for the school play all semester, and Josh needed his job at the grocery store to help his mom with rent.
What made it worse was that these three weren't even bad students. Josh actually had the highest lab scores in class but froze during multiple-choice tests. Maria was applying for athletic scholarships that would vanish without her championship times.
The principal had been getting more extreme each year. Last semester, he canceled art class for two weeks to make room for "test strategy sessions." The year before, he'd replaced the annual field trip with a practice exam. Teachers started quitting - we lost our beloved English teacher after he was reprimanded for assigning novels instead of test passages.
Ms. Winters tried reasoning with the principal, explaining these kids weren't slackers. "This isn't fair to them," she argued in the hallway. We could hear her from our classroom.
The principal just said, "Their scores reflect poorly on this institution."
That night, our class group chat exploded. Someone mentioned that the principal's bonus was tied directly to test scores. Another person said their parents overheard that our school was at risk of losing funding if scores dropped again. The pieces started making sense.
The next morning, Ms. Winters arrived early carrying boxes of supplies. Instead of test prep, she announced, "Today we're conducting an experiment on stress hormones and performance anxiety."
When Tyler asked how this would help with testing, she smiled mysteriously and said, "Trust the scientific method."
The next day, Ms. Winters handed out our regular lab assignment, completely ignoring the mandatory test prep packets. When the principal stormed in demanding an explanation, she simply said, "They'll learn more from actual science than memorizing test answers."
He ordered her to switch to test prep immediately. She refused.
That afternoon, Josh discovered something unexpected while filing papers in the office for his student aide position - a document showing our principal had been altering previous years' test scores, inflating them just enough to secure his performance bonuses. Josh snapped a photo with his phone and showed Ms. Winters after class.
She looked at it for a long time, then said quietly, "This explains a lot."
On Thursday, Ms. Winters seemed defeated. She walked in with the test prep booklets and apologized to the class. We were shocked. Had she given up? But halfway through the period, she passed out sealed envelopes to each student and winked.
Inside were personalized study guides - not for the state test, but for each student's actual academic goals. Maria's focused on marine biology for her future career, Tyler's connected Shakespeare to modern screenwriting, and Josh's broke down complex formulas into manageable steps.
"Your real education matters more than his statistics," she whispered as she walked the rows.
That Friday, Ms. Winters didn't show up. We had a substitute who handed out test booklets without making eye contact. The rumors started immediately.
The following Monday, our principal announced Ms. Winters was "no longer employed" due to "insubordination." What he didn't know was that Tyler's dad was on the school board.
Two weeks later, our principal was the one who disappeared. The official reason was "pursuing other opportunities," but everyone knew the truth. Ms. Winters was back the next day, sheep hearts and all.