When you see a local teacher scandal on TV screens throughout the Northwest, you know somebody messed up. Such is the case with the Oak Harbor School District, which mishandled a teacher whose behavior elicited numerous student complaints over a number of years, but who kept his job with the school district.

Eventually this teacher was arrested by the Oak Harbor Police Department and charged with fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation involving a 12-year-old girl. The arrest made public a situation that has been simmering for years, with no effective action taken by the school district.

Superintendent Rick Schulte summarized the district’s position by saying, “It’s way too hard to fire a teacher.”

Oak Harbor Education Association President Peter Szalai responded to Schulte’s comments by saying it should be hard to fire a teacher, and equating a teacher’s job rights to a citizen’s constitutional rights. Schulte is correct in this dispute. It should be a lot easier to fire a teacher than it is, for example, to arrest someone for speaking out. In the first case only a job is at stake. In the latter it is one’s personal freedom.

This dispute suggests one thing that’s wrong with our modern system of education. It’s too adversarial. Administrators and the union should be working together to see that only the best teachers are hired, that teachers are properly trained and paid, that the best are rewarded, and that the worst are shown the door before their conduct impacts students and becomes an embarrassment to the community.

The public’s trust is hard to gain and easy to lose. Because of this, it should be easier to fire a teacher, and the union should get behind the idea.