teacher fired for being survivor of domestic violence

[Hekate]

3. Absent a life-term in prison for hubby, what would you have the school do? Wait for another...

... Sandy Hook Elementary School type massacre?

This predicament falls on the school's shoulders precisely because of the failure of the rest of society to deal adequately with the complex of issues surrounding spousal abuse: ability to purchase firearms, inability to meaningfully enforce restraining orders, lackadaisical enforcement of spousal abuse laws (including stalking) by cops, judges, and juries; low funding and low availability of escape hatches for abused spouses, no help at all that I know of for entering something like a protected witness program.

How is this the school's fault?

If I as an administrator am looking at a man who is stalking his wife onto the campus and behaving in a threatening manner such that the school goes into lockdown, and given the other facts, then I have some truly horrible choices to make, but first and foremost I must consider the safety of dozens of children and their teachers.

As a humanitarian gesture the administration might bend over backwards to get the abuser's family out of town and to a safe place. But keep her in the classroom? I think not.

Sure, she can sue the school and the diocese, but while that case is dragging through the courts I presume she and her kids will still be at the same address as always -- very handy for her abuser, no? What do you think his plan is, after he gets out of the slammer? I'll bet dollars to holes in doughnuts that he will go right home and reclaim "what's his." Lovely.