Teacher accuses school firing for being atheist.

[Brian37]

Story from Pathos.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressive...s-lawsuit/

[Faith No More]

Well, we have no way of determining what actually happened, but I can totally see this happening in Indiana.

[Minimalist]

Yep. Principal sounds like your typical jesus freak cunt.

[SteelCurtain]

For Hemant Mehta's assessment, see his article.

Apparently the dude sent this email to the entire staff of the school:

“Since I’m an atheist and a mystical sky daddy has nothing to do with weather, I won’t be kneeling. I will be relying on science and the oftentimes (sic) in exact (sic) science of metereology (sic). The only relability (sic) we seem to get from weather reports is how often they’re reliably wrong.”

That's a stupid, dumb thing to do, but it shouldn't get him fired. If you add the rest of the shit, then maybe he got fired because he was a shitty teacher that did a shitty job and sent a stupid, inflammatory, unprofessional email to the entire staff (not the first time he sent inappropriate emails to the entire staff) of a school on the same day as his performance review.

The rest of the shit:

After an open records request from The Goshen News, [Superintendent Jane] Allen provided more general detail regarding the decision to fire Pack, but did not include specifics to many of her bullet points. Allen indicated that Pack received poor performance evaluations, poorly managed his classroom, lacked consistency in curriculum and assessment, lost students’ work, left the classroom during class leaving students unsupervised, missed multiple staff meetings, was late on several occasions, missed parent-teacher conferences and showed R-rated movies in his class.

Some of these accusations (like the movie - which was Run, Lola, Run - a standard movie in German classes, apparently) are nit-picky. Although, to be fair, he was showing a movie with S&M in it to freshmen and sophomores without parental approval.

Document from the Superintendent

But some are more damning.

He was a teacher on a probationary contract. He had a year before he became a teacher in good standing. He was observed multiple times before the incident by the school board, and never got a positive or improved score. The schoolboard received multiple complaints from parents and students about his conduct in the classroom. Students felt disrespected, Pack was reported to laugh at or yell at students if they didn't know an answer. His advanced level German classes were not speaking German 75% of the time, which was woefully inadequate. He was having to follow up instructions in English for his senior level classes. He was reported to have made an offensive Jewish joke in a German class when covering the Holocaust. He lost student's work more than once. He gave students grades (good grades) for assignments they'd never completed. He left the classroom for student presentations. He made his students purchase Rosetta Stone instead of actually teaching them. He showed another iffy move "The Blue Angel," and when students told them it made them uncomfortable, he told them to try to get him fired, he didn't care. When the students took him up on the offer, he accused them of "starting an uprising" in front of the class.

Add to all this that he was disorganized enough with his lesson plans and curriculum that multiple parents were calling the school district complaining. He regularly missed meetings, called out of work, reneged on commitments, sent inappropriate emails, and refused to take criticism for his teaching.

I don't think this guy got fired because he was an atheist.

I think he got fired because he was shitty at his job, was an asshole to everyone at work, and then played the persecution card because clearly he has an issue taking ownership of his own shit.

[Jackalope]

Sure looks that way.

Pro-tip: Don't be an asshole if you want to keep your job.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Speaking as someone who has supervised staffs of up to thirty, I can say that if you send an email like that around publicly, you're a marked man. Obvious efforts to cause dissension on the team will get you a pink slip, and deservedly so.