Hi! I’ll refer to myself as Ava on this post. I’m 22 (f) now but this happened a few years ago during my sophomore year of high school. I went to a pretty small school (about 400 kids or so), and was obsessed with theatre. Anything theatre related, I did, and I did it proud. During my freshman year, our theatre director and technical director left due to being let go, leaving us to with the choice to interview potential theatre candidates. One (Ms. T) was someone who seemed like a nice person. She was dedicated to her craft and wanted to nurture our interests as theatre students. She seemed like tthe perfect person, but boy were we wrong. For our first show, she proposed something that she wrote herself. For one of the parts, she wanted us to pant and bark like dogs, to which we expressed our uncomfortability. She took that as a personal attack and started manipulating us into thinking that we were the problem by saying she worked hard on the play and that we couldn’t put it on anymore. After that, there were many times she wouldn’t listen to us, tell us that we made her want to leave the school, made us feel bad for missing a rehearsal due to unplanned conflicts, deliberately had us do a play that was "childish" (it wasn’t), and it got so bad to the point where I brought the situation up to our principal, in which he took the time to let her go (AKA fire her). I’ve been harping on this for a few years, and wondering if me letting the principal know was a bad thing or not. Should I have talked with her even though she wouldn’t listen? Should I have been more direct or something of the sort where she wouldn’t feel as bad or whatnot? I’m just very confused and looking for some feedback.
FOR CLARIFICATION:
No, I was not in the room for the hiring process. They allowed a group of students to test out a few of her lessons and interview her, just to get the input from the students. They also had an adult in the room, but we weren’t in on the final meeting. Our opinions had a huge impact on what the principal and everyone in the higher-ups talked about (for example, if the students heavily disliked someone, they wouldn’t hire them. They also paid attention to why the students liked them to impact their decisions), but we weren’t in the room for the actual hiring. Sorry if it sounded like something else!
NTA one comment from a student like that is not enough to fire her. She likely had been repeatedly warned or had multiple complaints lodged against her before that.
NTA because I’m a teacher, I know that one student expressing negative feedback would end with a teacher getting fired. There were certainly many other factors. While you may have played a role (pun intended), it was likely very small.
You did the right thing. For all you know, we could’ve be sitting here today listening to a podcast called “The Theatre Teacher Everyone Ignored.”
I promise you that the principal didn’t fire her because you complained. They would have needed real reasons, one student venting isn’t enough.
Similarly I don’t believe that you had a hand in hiring or choosing the theatre candidates after the original left. That’s not how jobs work.
You’re NTA but you do have an inflated ego.
I did a bit, bc my school had a way for students to give input on the hiring process. We would interview the person and attend workshops. We weren’t a part of the hire up’s hiring process of course, but because of our feedback, the school took that into account during the process, which is a reason why they considered her over the other candidates.
NTA you did exactly what you should have done! You had a concern and expressed it to an adult in charge. What they did after that is up to their schools protocol and there were probably other complaints for her to be fired over that.
Your school let you choose the theater director?
I don’t understand some of the details:
\- For part of the play, you had to act like dogs. What made you uncomfortable about that? – In what way did she have to listen to you?
\- What kind of “unplanned conflicts” were you all missing rehearsals for? Should she not be upset about it?
\- I don’t understand the “childish” part. She thought the show was childish but it actually wasn’t?
I’m not even sure what she did that was so problematic that the principal actually fired her.
And this was after he had already fired a different theater director? What was going on in your school’s theater department?
Honestly, I can’t judge because a lot of what you’ve written doesn’t make sense or there are details left out.
Hi there. Former theater kid myself AND current teacher (with 22 years experience at this point 🥴). You strike me as someone who may have anxiety (?) based on the number of years you’ve been thinking about this (please forgive me if I am reading this totally wrong but again, hi 🙋🏼♀️) so I want to give you permission to stop worrying about this. If all it took was one complaint from one student to get this person fired, there were clearly other things going on behind the scenes that admin knew about and that you as a student were not privy to. You were just a child and you spoke up when you felt uncomfortable, which was the right thing to do. NTA…and no more worries ❤️
Youre okay, dw!! I do have anxiety, and I tend to harp on things a lot, which is why it’s been weighing on my mind for a while. I wasn’t thinking about it nonstop, but it would come up from time to time, so I suppose this is my let go of my drama from the drama program, loll. Thank you for checking in!
You didn’t get her fired. Her own actions got her fired. You did *nothing* wrong. The only time someone is doing something wrong when “reporting” actions to someone’s supervisor is if they are lying. I am a teacher. I am responsible for my actions and I shouldn’t fear admin knowing anything/everything I do. It’s highly unlikely that the principal just took your word for it. Unless they were extremely incompetent, they would have done their own investigating.
NTA – You were a kid. You neither had a say i her being hired nor being fired. You may have had an opportunity to express on a candidate or to complain in the end kids do not get a say in the final decisions leading up to hiring and firing any person. Your voice may have some impact here getting fired in that it may have started an investigation or was the proverbial drop and in the hiring part, ”her credentials check out and the kids seem to enjoy working with her.”
Don’t worry, that teacher went on to write Zapped for Disney Channel.
NTA.
“I’ll refer to myself as Ava on this post.”
WTF for? Nowhere do you refer to yourself as anything. Tell me you’re a drama kid without telling me you’re a drama kid.