I can only speak from my state's perspective...A teacher has a three-year probationary period in which he/she can be fired for cause if parents go to the school administration with enough complaints. After three years the teacher is tenured and harder to fire...it takes documented instances of incompetence, abuse, etc.
"After three years the teacher is tenured and harder to fire...it takes documented instances of incompetence, abuse, etc."
K-12 Teacher Tenure should be ABOLISHED. Even for College Professors, the excuses for tenure are getting thin (viz. the Ward Churchill affair). Long gone are the days of Guilds and employment for life. But for HS and below there is no 'free speech' issue. The teachers teach the curriculum and either do a good job or not. If they perform poorly, they must be let go.
"A teacher has a three-year probationary period in which he/she can be fired for cause if parents go to the school administration with enough complaints."
All teachers under all conditions should be fire-able 'for cause', and to have any teacher outside that basic level of responsibility is an act of child abuse.
She's still there.
So is the teacher who spent an entire school year outside smoking.