I asked why my termination was being sought, and the principal's reply was in response to the violations of campus policy that had been expressed in the letters he'd written over the prior fourteen months. I asked if there was any other reason than the ones given in the letters; he said no, there wasn't. It had been exactly one week since I'd let Kari know I wasn't submitting to her slander, blackmail, or fraud, and my first thought was the timing of this was too coincidental.

Over the next few days I let the very closest of my students know what was going on, perhaps a half-dozen from the prior year's classes who'd met with me before or after school to see how I was doing.

The stress of having to develop a plan to fight to keep teaching wore me down to little or no sleep some nights, and on Wednesday 11 December I was late to school for the fourth time in two-and-a-half years. Rather than fight it or explain it at all, I wrote a letter of resignation as of the end of the school year and submitted it that morning (during my prep period) to the district administrator. I was told a meeting would be set after school the following Tuesday, and from there he would decide what to do about my situation.

The charges against me were:

• Smoking on campus in October 2001
• Being late to school four times over 2001-2002
• Accepting rides from or giving rides to students
• Condoning students breaking the closed campus policy in May 2002
• Use of an inappropriate classroom example in September 2002
• Throwing a piece of chalk at a student in October 2002
• Telling students details of my personal life

Individually, the charges were each petty, to say the least. The complaint of the principal was that the aggregate showed a pattern of... well, he didn't use these words, but I will... corrupting the youth of Holmen. Stealing Plato's attribution to Socrates: "I am afraid the Holmenites thought me too talkative."

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