Principal hires 'stalker' to track teacher's activities on her last day — only to get exposed by a school-wide message

Imagine it’s your final day at work after four years of service as a teacher. You’ve given your notice and want to enjoy one final afternoon with the students. Instead, you find yourself being stalked through hallways, from the arts room to the playground, and even in a remote wing. For one teacher, this was the final straw in their relationship with her employers. They took to Reddit on March 28 under the username u/therealilith to vent their frustrations about the uncanny behavior of their management.

It all started when the teacher received an offer from another school with much better conditions. They couldn’t leave right away and had to serve a 30-day notice or risk losing pay. So they followed the rules and worked until the final day, which required them to stay until 6 p.m. That wouldn’t have been an issue, until a quick call during their planning period changed everything.

“I took a quick call with my new job, and within minutes, the principal barged in, started yelling, and called me a liar,” the teacher wrote. “The fact that I took a short call during my planning time meant I wasn’t fully focused on them, so she said I had lied and demanded I hang up immediately." At first, they tried to ignore it, but only until the principal sent around a so-called “coordinator” to follow them around for the rest of their final day with the students.

“At one point, she literally popped up in the music room, a remote part of the school, saw me, panicked, and pretended she was there looking for another class. The catch? There was no other class,” the teacher claimed. They finally decided to call out this micromanagement once and for all. “I dropped my students off for lunch, packed my stuff, and left 6 hours early. Before leaving, I sent a detailed message in the school-wide Google Chat explaining exactly why I was leaving and that I wouldn’t tolerate being treated like that,” they revealed.

While the decision was quite liberating for the teacher, it also helped parents and other people involved within the organization to get a reality check, as this teacher wasn't the only one exposed to such terrible working conditions. Not to mention, the school, despite them being on a notice period, didn’t have a replacement ready.

Nonetheless, while this teacher was able to get out of the misery and start fresh, that isn’t the reality for most of the teachers across America. Only a third of teachers say they’re extremely or very satisfied with their job overall. About half (48%) say they’re somewhat satisfied, while 18% say they are not too or not at all satisfied with their job, as per Pew Research Center’s recent survey. This is significantly lower than the rest of the professions across the country, with almost 51% of adults claiming that they are extremely or very satisfied with their job.

Many readers supported the teacher's decision in the comments. u/emmyparker2020 wrote, "Teaching in a nutshell… I’m glad you’re out! Wishing you the best!" u/CuriousVermicelli583

commented, "That’s the worst part. You don’t find out what management is really like until you’re already stuck there. 4 years is brutal."

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