Teacher's Termination Upheld For Sexually Explicit Craigslist Ad Not Connected To School
By Michelle Ball, California Education Attorney for Students since 1995 Some time ago, a question was sent to me via my Twitter account regarding just WHAT is enough to get a teacher terminated. Termination is up to the individual school district involved and what is enough may be very fact specific. However, some instruction on just what a teacher can be fired for was outlined by the California Court of Appeals, Fourth District in its decision San Diego Unified School District v. Commission on Professional Competence (2011) issued this week (May 3, 2011). In its opinion, the Court of Appeals upheld a District termination of a teacher for posting a highly explicit sexual ad on Craigslist seeking male-on-male companionship. The ad included four pictures, two of which were very intimate pictures of the teacher, while another showed the teacher's face. The ad did not reference the teacher's employment, name, nor was the ad connected in any way to the t...