Students often forget that their teachers are, in fact, human beings. They may seem perfect and impervious to mistakes while teaching in front of dozens of students every day, but educators have flaws just like everyone else. The students in the following stories dish the dirt on the teachers whose fall from grace ended with them be walked out in handcuffs.
(Content has been edited for clarity.)
Please Take A Seat
“I was taught by a man who was arrested in a child abuse sting. He thought he was going to have relations with an adolescent girl, but she was actually an undercover officer. He brought his 11-month-old son with him to their meeting. Super gross.
He was nice on paper, but I do remember deliberately ranking the subject he taught (band) the lowest on my art choices for the next year despite the fact that it was easily the subject I was best at because I already played an instrument. He just seemed creepy. I remember him being disappointed that I didn’t want to be in his class the next year. This may have been as simple as him wanting students who already knew how to play instruments in the band. Or maybe he was being a creep. Who knows.
One of my friends was really shocked and upset by the whole thing. She was in the band and loved this teacher. Based on her reaction I assume (and hope) he never hurt her. I think it really shook her trust in adults in general and in men specifically.”
She Was Teaching The Wrong Kind Of Science
wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock
“My 11th-grade physics teacher was arrested for possession of controlled substances and child neglect (the police found residue in her kid’s board game boxes) when I was in the 12th grade.
I had her first period, and she always came in a few minutes late and always seemed very frazzled. She always had her 5-year-old with her in class, I think because the daycare run by my high school didn’t start until after first period ended. She would run through a week’s worth of material in one 45-minute class and then spend the rest of the week clearing up all the confusion she created. Then when the test came around, she would just walk around the class solving problems on the test for us. My friends and I just played poker in the back of the room for the entire second-half of the school year once we realized that she didn’t care about anything. One time, her kid wasn’t feeling well, so in order to placate him, she played the movie ‘Wall-E’ for us.
She also took entire class periods to tell us about her husband: She met him while she was a bartender at Outback Steakhouse. He was a regular customer, and they were hitting it off when one night he just stopped showing up for a while. Her coworker told her he was on house arrest for repeated driving under the influence offenses. Eventually, he returned to Outback and they started going out.
When her husband was 19 years old, his friends said: ‘we should rob a bank,’ and planned out a robbery, but they were joking. Her husband didn’t get the joke and showed up at the bank with a screwdriver. He was arrested for armed robbery.
No one was surprised when she was arrested.”
Burning Down The House
beornbjorn/Shutterstock
“My eighth-grade social studies teacher turned out to have burned down a building in college which resulted in the death of a dyslexic man who couldn’t get out in time, but somehow he got off on those charges. He’s in jail now for embezzling school money to bang a student teacher though, so I guess what goes around comes around.
He was a weird guy. I personally enjoyed his class at the time because he was a real stickler on discipline, and when you’re a quiet, shy kid, having a person of authority yell at everyone else to shut up is nice. He would say and do a lot of problematic things. For example, he would give candy to kids who passed test, but it would be Smarties to boys and Dum-dums to girls, as well as made lots of ‘dumb blonde’ jokes to the class. He had us watch Oliver Stone’s ‘JFK’ in class to get us to distrust the government at a young age. Also, he made a lot of ‘It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’ remarks and commented how the only accomplished black people for black history month are basketball players. I was a kid in a predominately conservative area, so at the time I didn’t think much of it. He wrote a line from the Bible in my yearbook. I feel a bit bad for looking up to him at the time, but at least I figured out that he was full of crap.
When I was a sophomore in high school, the police took him into custody for a retrial of the whole arson thing. Around that time, he unfriended a bunch of students on Facebook and only left me and one other guy as his friends. A few years later, when the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, he and the other guy got in a long Facebook discussion about how America is going to down the drain or something. Then he got re-arrested, tried for embezzlement, and sentenced. I remember reading reports about how his defense was basically how he’s ‘such a great guy’ that he would never do those terrible things and he forced his 7-year-old daughter to testify on the stand about how her daddy would never steal money to cheat on her mommy in a cheap motel.”
Giving A Whole New Meaning To “Social Studies”
Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
“My senior year of high school, my Social Studies teacher was a handsome man in his early 30s. He was a ‘coach’ they just stuck in that room to give us crosswords and default assignments. We never did anything. He was nice and chill but just played on his phone while we did whatever. He usually had the cheerleaders sitting on the corner of his desk laughing.
I guess the ‘social’ aspect of that class was him having relations every underage teenage girl that would smile at him.
It was sad. He had a kind and beautiful wife who taught at the elementary school. When she would bring him lunch, she’d have these loving smiles on her face. They had two young children together – the combination of cheating AND statutory charges must have just been crushing.
Well, it came out about five years after I graduated that the rumor he was sleeping with his students was very true. I forget how many counts now, but apparently he would tell every one of them she was SPECIAL and the ONLY one. A couple of the SPECIAL GIRLS somehow got in contact with each other, realized what he was doing, and rallied everyone else to turn him in.
Great news is, the loving wife is now remarried to a great guy who is a real father to her girls.”
He Seemed Like A Decent Guy Until He Wasn’t
Olena Yakobchuk/Shutterstock
“I had a teacher in elementary school who was odd, but a good teacher. He taught science and music, always had a lame joke stashed away, and was really enthusiastic about teaching. He wasn’t my favorite teacher, but decent enough. Well, this was in the sixth grade, and about ten years later, he snapped.
He was out running one day in the summer and went up to this woman’s house asking for water because he was feeling faint and he was an older guy. She let him in the front door and turned around to get water when he jumped her and stabbed her repeatedly before taking off.
She survived and he was arrested. No one knows why he snapped and hurt this woman, there were no signs of a violent bone in his body. It was quite strange.”
There Were Many Victims Here
Ollyy/Shutterstock
“My gym teacher seemed like a normal gym teacher. That is, a little odd and wore shorts that seemed almost indecently short. Well, the year after I graduated, he got busted for child smut. Not just looking at child smut, he was creating it.
I don’t think they found anything taken in the high school itself, but there were former students of his in the material. He ended up killing himself in his jail cell while awaiting trial.
His wife worked at the school as a literature teacher but was forced to leave by the PTA. That bothers me because she wasn’t involved, and was actually a tremendous teacher.”
Stealing From Students?
RomarioIen/Shutterstock
“My music teacher in elementary school ended up being fired and arrested for stealing money from children to support his speed addiction. He would tell them to bring in money for a field trip or other class function and just keep the money. This happened when I was a few years out of elementary school.
I remember him as a very enthusiastic gay man who was a great teacher. He had a passion for the subject and teaching children. He would organize concerts that bordered on musical theater for every grade each year. This was definitely not the standard in my school district, as I found out from friends who went to other schools. He did it because he was committed.
A sad example of the destructive power of addiction, really.”
No One Was Surprised
logoboom/Shutterstock
“My eighth-grade social studies teacher, who also served as my homeroom and study hall teacher, was a total nutjob.
He was well known for showing ‘films’ in class instead of teaching. I think the year before I had him he showed over 100; I know we were at like 70, but he was out for a while recovering from a surgery. Oh, and you couldn’t call them movies… they were films.
He also made us make ‘foldables’ for each unit instead of actually teaching us. He had a specific way we had to fill out the foldables, and if you didn’t follow it perfectly, you’d only get half credit. I remember I typed some parts of one of mine because I couldn’t write small enough to fit everything and he gave me a zero because he ‘couldn’t be sure that I typed it.’
This guy was the well known crazy teacher. Some prime examples include: having a giant paper mache fish in his room, chasing students down the hallways with the paper mache fish, and hiding the fish in students’ lockers. The one thing I do remember is that he loved to interrupt other classes. He came into my algebra class on the regular. One day, he came in and drew a duck on our whiteboard. Ten minutes later, he came in again and started yelling something. The third time he came in, he started yelling about how George Washington didn’t believe in algebra. He was wearing a hat and had a fake sword too. He was pretty entertaining, but I don’t remember a single thing we learned that year.
Later when we found out he’d been arrested for driving his truck into his house and attempting to kill his wife. None of us were shocked, to be honest.”
This Student’s Good Grades Gave It Away
beeboys/Shutterstock
“My physics teacher was fantastic. I was not a good student and wasn’t motivated at all. I was a C/D student and did just enough to get by. I loved his class, and I got an A my first semester, much to the surprise of everybody because I almost didn’t get into the class on account of my grades in other classes.
My grade in that class started to drop off in the second semester, and I was sitting at a low B, a couple more missed homework assignments and I would have been getting a C. The teacher apparently cared about his students enough to check up on them. I didn’t have a particularly great relationship with the man but he came by my desk and asked me why my grade was slipping and if everything was okay at home. I worked and I got that grade back up and finished out the class with an A. I didn’t really talk to him outside of regular teacher/student environment. At one point, my mom, who was blown away that I got a good grade, went into the school to talk to him and thank him for somehow motivating this kid she was having an impossible time with. Apparently, that meeting didn’t go well; he was very standoffish and my mom walked away with a bad feeling about him.
My mom has great intuition. It turns out, the teacher was a creep. He used to run a male beauty pageant at the school and nobody thought anything of it; it was a lot of goofy fun for the students. Well, as a promotion for this, he was taking pictures of the boys who were taking part. He had a kid alone in his classroom, taking pictures of him with his shirt off, and he walked over and pulled the kid’s pants down.
The police raided his house, and of course, they found much worse. He served time. I think he still lives in town.”
He Was “Just A Regular Guy Who Seemed To Love His Life”
“The speech/drama teacher/tennis coach at my high school was also the official announcer for the Oklahoma City Thunder. He was awesome. Everyone loved him. Nobody ever thought he was creepy. Guys gave him high fives and he had secret handshakes with dozens of students. Girls would hug him and it wasn’t weird at all. He wasn’t like young and hot, but he wasn’t old and creepy either. Just a regular guy who seemed to love his life.
That was until it got out that he would watch adult films and pleasure himself while forcing his young children to watch. He was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison. It doesn’t seem like enough to me.”
Switched At Death
Joerg Huettenhoelscher/Shutterstock
“My ex-boyfriend went to a school in a tiny town in Wyoming. The school was so small the teacher had to cover several grades at a time.
One day, the school was visited by lots and lots of guys in suits and a few in military fatigues. They had a long recess and witnessed their teacher being taken out in handcuffs. It turns out he pulled a ‘Don Draper’ and switched dog tags in Vietnam. The other guy’s family was not as understanding and started asking questions until the military tracked him down. Never knew what happened after that.”
Well, At Least She Was Teaching
Pressmaster/Shutterstock
“My ninth-grade chemistry teacher was fired for teaching us how to make a bomb and for letting kids smoke outside her classroom during lunch. Might or might not have slept with a few students – that was never clear. Wasn’t arrested, but she just kinda vanished one day.
She was certainly the ‘cool’ teacher, though. She let us do pretty much whatever we wanted so long as we got our work done; if anything, that was the best incentive for the whole class to pass. I have some good memories from that class.”
He Couldn’t Clean Up This Mess
Suzanne Tucker/Shutterstock
“A janitor at my middle school was always a little weird and off-putting and would yell at kids for talking too loud or being in the hallways during class. My one weird experience with him was when I was staying after school for a club, and I went to use the bathroom. I walked in, and he was in there cleaning the stalls, so I began to step out, and as I was doing so, he told me I could still use the bathroom and he’d just be there cleaning.
Of course, that made me uncomfortable, so I left, but I never really told anyone about it. Years later, my parents saw in the paper that the janitor at my old middle school had gotten arrested for violating his own 6-year-old daughter as well as other girls at the school.”
Friendly Fire
PRESSLAB/Shutterstock
“When I was in the Army Reserves, I had an instructor during my soldier’s qualification course who had a tour in Afghanistan. When he was over there, he was cleaning his sidearm, but didn’t realize there was a round in the chamber, accidentally discharged it, and killed his buddy next to him.
He was sent home, and while he awaited trial, he was still able to do local taskings. He was placed on our course as an instructor. He wasn’t any different from the rest of the non-commission officers on our course, except for the time he lost his cool when someone didn’t exercise proper weapon safety.
From what I heard afterward, he eventually had his trial, got charged with a negligent discharge, plus manslaughter, and he ended up in military prison. It’s been so long ago that I’m sure he’s out now, but it’s messed up. He was a good person, just careless.”
What’s In The Gym Bag?
FrameStockFootages/Shutterstock
“My ninth-grade gym teacher was arrested for selling controlled substances out of his trunk. He was a very hyper-masculine, dude-bro, muscular guy. He definitely had male student admirers due to his physique, and they would squander gym time talking about lifting weights and ‘how to get chicks.’ Sometimes, some of his guys would try talking to me (I’m a smaller gal), and he would immediately scold them and tell them that I was too nice to be involved with them.
Overall, he wasn’t awful, just stupid and wanted money.”
A Couple Of Bad Apples
pathdoc/Shutterstock
“The principal of my high school was caught embezzling money from the school. She was a nice person and developed the school in many positive ways. It was a messed up situation in which her husband had cancer and they couldn’t afford the bills.
I also had a rabbi from my elementary school who was arrested for something related to abusing children. He was creepy and invited all the kids to sit on his lap. People were fine with this until he was arrested.”
The Signs Were All There
wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock
“I wasn’t in PE because of health issues but I was in the gym teacher’s health class a few times. All the girls in my class told me to avoid him at all costs. They said he touched their butts, stared at them, and peeked in the locker room multiple times.
The first class I had with him I tried to stay quiet and unnoticed. Everyone else was being rowdy, and he came up to me and said I was his favorite. I wasn’t sure what to think of him, so I asked my little sister what she thought of him. She said he tickled the girls, and pet their hair, and gave them piggyback rides. I told her to never let him touch her at all whatsoever.
He was also really aggressive with the male students and pushed a boy in my class into a wall once. The principal wouldn’t do anything about him despite knowing all these things he did. He was eventually let go when the parents of these kids got involved.
A few years later he was arrested for repeatedly violating a young child. It makes me sick to think about it.”