The Case of John Clarke- A Bad Teacher

            This is the Case of a very bad teacher. John was at Vestal School System a few years when his administrators felt they had just about enough of a teacher, John Clarke, and gave our brother John the task of firing the teacher.

            John Clarke was an English teacher. He had been in the Vestal School system many, many years, and every year there were many complaints about Mr. Clarke and his teaching methods, the fact that very few students learned anything in his class and he consistently did not teach his students much of anything. But he was a teacher with tenure and apparently impossible to fire. The Vestal School district officials and administration had had just too many complaints and they formulated a plan to get him out of the school system. For whatever reason, our brother John was chosen to gather the critical and essential evidence on Mr. Clarke and proceed with the action to get the teacher fired.

            John spent an enormous amount of time gathering information, talking with parents, observing the teacher in class, collecting documents for the school system - to get the necessary documentation to fire Mr. Clarke. The case went on for months with newspaper articles describing the Vestal School Board’s actions. It was nasty with charges and counter charges. Mr. Clarke was quoted in the newspaper saying that John Fanning was “out to get him”- John (according to Mr. Clarke) just had a serious personality conflict with Clarke. That was the main issue, the only real problem. The school district coordinator just didn’t like the teacher; it was as simple as that. Mr. Clarke got students to testify how great a teacher he was. Eventually, after 2 years of conflict and close to $1,000,000 in costs, the teacher was fired. The real victim in the case was our brother John - he was vilified. John was harassed, and verbally attacked for his part in the proceedings.

            John spoke often about this case - when it was in litigation and long after it was over. It took a heavy toll on him. John’s abiding sentiment was that it was extremely odious that bad teachers could not be removed from the classroom without a nasty and expensive fight. As a result the school system - Vestal’s and so many others - suffered substantially. The problem persists. He would often comment on this problem. On this issue, in this case, he was tested, he was pushed to his limits - it took a very serious toll on John.  

Postscript: John was a person with standards and a high regard for principles. He often mentioned how so many bad teachers remained in the classroom. Rarely would any school administrator ‘take on’ the task of removing any bad teachers. They just waited it out until the teachers retired. They knew of John’s idealism and thinking on this matter. It may have well been the reason they selected him for the nasty job.