What worries me most when reading this thread is the fact that the PO (along with other school staff) ignored abuse until it affected her own child. I would not want any of these people to be involved with my children or others! Ignoring abuse is tolerating it - tolerating it leads to accepting it as normal. Next stage, abusing.

As the PO said, posting things on the net (like mudcat) can bite you in the rear. She has admitted tolerating the abuse of others.

Biter bit?

WYSIWYG
My son fell into such a situation. My office in the school system just happened to be next door to the classroom in which he spent most of each day. I could HEAR his teacher's abusive approach verbally. Her targets were always little boys (and often, BTW, African-American little boys). I could hear her shrill voice raised to tell them they were stupid. One day she dragged my son bodily into my office in mid-rant to tell me how awful he was, shoving and scraping him in through the partly-opened door!

Although the principal was a friend and colleague, and he believed my account, there was very little he could do to affect her tenure unless he saw these things himself. Now, he'd inherited her from his predecessor and the stories about her were common knowledge among parents and faculty. Kids would be moved out of her room if they could not tolerate the abuse. The story offered was that she just had been teaching for far too long and wouldn't resign till she qualified for retirement benefits.