I Hired Her Anyway

When urgency overrides judgement

The seat had to be filled by Monday and she was the only candidate that was left in August. However, something in the interview didn’t sit right with me. I hired her anyway. The names are gone. The feeling in my stomach that morning is not. This is what it looked like from my chair.

August 2, 3:40 p.m.

Four sections of freshman English, no teacher, eleven days until the first bell. I had one resume on my desk and a superintendent who wanted the vacancy closed before the board meeting. Two other candidates had already turned us down for districts that paid more, and there were no substitute teachers left in that particular subject area.

She interviewed well on paper. Five years in a district two states over, decent references, available immediately, a portfolio of lesson plans that looked sharper than, frankly, half our current staff’s. In the room, something was off. She answered every question a beat too fast, like she had expertly rehearsed the version of herself she wanted me to see, and never once asked me a question back.

The call I didn’t make.

I meant to call her last principal directly, not just read the letter. I told myself there wasn’t time, that the district office was pushing for a name by Friday, that a five-year track record with clean references was enough to move on. That was true. It was also convenient, and I knew it was convenient even while I was telling myself it was thorough.

A gut feeling is not evidence.

I signed the recommendation that night at my kitchen table, the vacancy notice still open in a browser tab I hadn’t closed. The board approved her Thursday in a five-minute consent agenda item. She started the following Monday, badge photo taken that morning, keys handed over before I’d finished my coffee.

Week one.

She showed up early, dressed sharp, handed out a syllabus with more rigor than many veterans bother writing in their first year. Her room was organized before the first bell rang. For four days I thought I’d been wrong to worry, and I told my assistant principal as much on Wednesday, half convincing myself the interview had just caught her on an off day.

On Friday a parent called. Then two more by lunch. Same story from three different families, kids who didn’t share a class period and had no obvious reason to compare notes: their kids came home saying she’d told the class a story about a former student that named the district, named the offense, and named enough detail that two current staff members recognized who she meant.

What the reference actually said.

I called her old principal myself that afternoon, not his office line, his cell, which I’d had to track down through a mutual contact. He picked up on the second ring and sounded like he’d been waiting for the call. “I wondered if you’d phone,” he said. “She does that. Boundary stuff. Nothing that got her fired, but nothing anyone wanted to put in writing either.”

I asked him why the letter didn’t say that. He was quiet for a second, long enough that I thought the call had dropped. “Because a letter that says ‘don’t hire her’ invites a lawsuit,” he finally said, “and a letter that says nothing invites you to find out for yourself. I figured you’d call if it mattered enough.” I hadn’t, and it had.

The conversation.

I sat her down Monday morning, door closed, and told her exactly what I’d heard from three families and confirmed with her old principal that same weekend. She didn’t deny it. She said she thought the story “built trust” with the kids, that naming names made it feel real instead of hypothetical, and she seemed genuinely surprised I saw it differently.

I told her the story ends now, in every form, and that this was a formal warning attached to her file, documented the same day, copied to HR. She agreed without much argument. She never repeated the mistake, as far as I know. I still don’t know if I got lucky or if the conversation actually landed, and eight months later I’m still not sure which it was.

What I do differently now.

Every hire since, urgent or not, gets a phone call to the previous principal before the recommendation goes to the board, even if it means the seat sits empty for an extra week. I’ve made that call dozens of times since. Twice I heard the same careful silence I heard that August afternoon before I followed up, and both times it changed my decision before the contract was ever signed.

THE TRANSFERABLE PRINCIPLE

A polished reference letter tells you what a district was willing to put in writing, not what happened in that building. The version of the truth a former employer can be sued over is never the same as the version they’ll give you on the phone, off the record, with a little silence built in for you to ask the follow-up question. When you’re filling a seat under deadline pressure, the temptation is to treat a clean letter as clearance. It isn’t. It’s an invitation to call. Make the call before the contract, not after the complaint, and absolutely build in the time to make it even when the vacancy is screaming at you to skip it.

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Until next time — the chair is yours.

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