Hi there. If you’re reading this page, it’s because you’ve discovered that I resigned from my position at Kellett and disappeared from the school entirely sometime in the middle of June. This page will answer all of your questions (at least, to the extent that I have answers). To state the obvious, this is my version of events. It includes my opinions and theories based on everything that happened, some of which is speculative and even unprovable. I’m sure the school would relate some details differently and perhaps add a few more of their own. All I’m trying to do here is give an honest account of my personal experience of the events of the past six days, because I don’t want to have this conversation 37 different times with the people who are invariably going to want to know. So, without further ado, here’s an extremely verbose FAQ.

Q: What the fuck happened?

I got an email from Vicky sometime late in the afternoon on Friday, June 12th. It just said that Paul wants me to come by his office at 3:10.

Obviously, my immediate reaction is some mixture of confusion and terror. I am not aware of any reason that Paul would need to speak to me. My mind and my heart both start racing, and I try to stay calm. Part of this effort includes imagining non-terrifying reasons that Paul might want to talk to me. Eventually my desperate brain conjures one: Emma has just resigned, and the school is down a History/EPQ teacher for next year with limited time to find a replacement. He’s probably going to ask me if I want to take on any of that role next year, since I’ve only got a .6 part-time contract. (Oh, how I flatter myself.) I start running through that hypothetical conversation in my head, wondering what I should say if he asks me about this. (In the back of my head, though, I know that Joe would be the one asking me about this, not Paul, so this is probably wrong.)

It was definitely wrong. I entered Paul’s office to the sight of him, Joe, and Lorraine already seated at the conference table. I was invited to take the empty seat at the head.

Imagine, if you can, how you’d feel in that moment. I have absolutely no idea what this is about, yet simultaneously I know that I am fucked. It’s over. I’m done here.

Paul wastes little time on pleasantries and gets right to it: I’ve been accused of making several comments to different students that have made them feel uncomfortable. He describes two separate incidents, in both of which I’m accused of “mentioning a student’s bra.” He reads a bit of detail, hoping that I’ll know what he’s talking about. At this moment, however, I am in full panic-mode. My mind is blank, and I’m just sitting silently in the chair, listening, trying to process what is happening. I tell Paul that I don’t know what he’s talking about, struggling to produce any kind of thoughtful, coherent response.

Since I’m not able to muster a robust defense of myself, there’s not much more to the meeting. Paul says that I’m being suspended from work (with pay, mercifully) while they investigate these allegations. I am not to come to work on Monday, and I am forbidden from discussing this with anyone. I’m told to wait for an email from HR sometime during the day on Monday, informing me of a meeting on Tuesday that I will attend to follow up on this.

My sense of that initial meeting was one of confrontation and condemnation rather than investigation or inquiry. Though it was framed as a meeting to inform me of and perhaps discuss allegations made against me, the tenor from the beginning was more like that of an arraignment. This was not, “here are some things you are accused of doing - did you do these things?” It was, “here’s a list of things that you did. Why did you do these awful things?” I did not get the impression that I’d be able to explain or plead my way out of this. From the moment I walked into that office and saw those three identical unwavering, stern countenances, I knew that there was not going to be a happy ending to this story. They had already made up their minds, and I was done.

And then I had to live with that feeling for the entirety of the weekend. I lost sleep. That interaction was the last thing I thought about before I ever did manage to close my eyes and the first thing my mind returned to when I woke up. I rehearsed myriad imagined arguments with that stony-faced trio in practically every waking moment over the next two days… trying to figure out what they were talking about, trying to make sense of the utter seriousness of the situation with the (to my mind, at least) fairly mundane allegations against me, trying to imagine what I might say to regain some traction, some hope, some dignity.

I was at least able to recall one of the “mentioning a student’s bra” incidents in this sadistically long time between meetings - more on that in a moment. That interaction, though, happened almost two months prior. The timing of the meeting only added to my confusion. As I sat with my incessant ruminations over the weekend I moved from disbelief to annoyance, now believing that I understood at least part of what I was being accused of, and that these accusations did not warrant the incredibly dramatic and, frankly, already punitive (they did this to me on a goddamn Friday afternoon, the villains) behavior of the administration.

I didn’t come to work on Monday, as I was instructed. This was not without its own problems, though, as the school didn’t really offer me sufficient guidance on how to manage this. Am I supposed to log it as an absence in the HR app? If so, what do I put in for my reason? (There’s no “I can’t come in because I’m being investigated” option - I checked.) I have a timetabled lesson on Monday. Am I supposed to set cover? Respond to emails? What’s worse, because I’m not allowed to tell anyone what’s going on, I now have to lie to several of my colleagues: Jenny (my morning taxi buddy), Stéphane (my line manager), Josh (my co-tutor), and Leon (the cover scheduler). I try my best to do what I think I’m supposed to, so I put “sick leave” in the HR app, set cover for my Y9 Latin lesson that day, and keep an eye on my emails.

The school, of course, does not hold up its end of the deal. Monday passes - no email from HR. I finally reach out directly to Lorraine via WhatsApp at around 5 PM Monday evening. She says sorry, Paul wasn’t in, so they weren’t able to have a meeting. (Was anyone ever going to tell me this if I hadn’t asked?) She tries repeatedly to reach Paul via text, email, and phone, but he’s not responding. I have no instructions to follow now, so I ask Lorraine what to do, and she makes something up in the absence of official guidance. She tells me not to come to work again on Tuesday but to be ready to come in for a meeting. So I put it another sick day into the app and lie to the aforementioned people again about why I’m not coming to work.

Tuesday morning, I do get an email from HR. Paul is still unwell, but Lorraine and Joe will meet with me at 1:00. I put on some work-appropriate clothes and make my way to school for the meeting. It’s in the middle of a school day, lunchtime, so the first floor area is full of students. I try my best to dash into the HR office without anyone seeing me, horribly embarrassed as I am about all of this.

It’s difficult for me to convey in words just how incredibly anxious, afraid, and defeated I felt as I sat down for that meeting. I was quite certain that I would be fired, possibly within the next half hour. Still, when the meeting began, I led with the only thing I had to try to placate my superiors - an explanation of one of the “mentioning a student’s bra” incidents. (If you want to judge for yourself, here’s what I remember, and what I told Joe and Lorraine that day: It was Friday, April 24th. I know that because it was a Feel Good Friday, and I make a note of all of them in my planner, along with what colors to wear for the dress-down day. The colors for that day were pink and red. I don’t remember the student, but I remember the interaction: it was a science cover lesson, and as I was milling about, making sure the kids were doing their work, I overheard a female student say that she had forgotten to wear anything red or pink. Looking at her, I noticed (because it’s the first thing anyone would have noticed) that she had a florescent-pink bra on. It was clearly visible, uncovered as it was by the white tank-top she was wearing. I pointed out to her that, actually, she was wearing a pink bra. She paused and thought, and gave some sort of a nod, and said “true.” That was the entirety of the interaction. One can still make the argument - and I’m even amenable to it - that I should simply not have that interaction at all. Fine, fair. But that was the interaction, and it was two months prior to this meeting.)

The explanation went nowhere. Joe had some printed notes in front of him with all of the allegations written out, and he was flipping through them, clearly not all that familiar with what was in the documents. “No, that’s not what it says here…” he countered, only then to realize a moment later that he was, in fact, confused (bless him) and mixing up two different allegations. It didn’t matter anyway. I don’t know if the school had done more muck-raking (sorry, investigating) since the Friday meeting, but there were now many more allegations being thrown out at me, none of which was mentioned in the original meeting with Paul. This included the allegation that I had called one of my tutees “princess” - apparently this is egregious misconduct, regardless of context or circumstance, which were not given and I assume also not known. The nadir of the litany was surely the recitation that I had made a comment about a male student’s stature (“and he is short…” Joe confirmed). The allegations were coming faster than I could respond to them, and all presented to me now for the first time. I was completely unequipped to react and unable to mount any sort of defense other than to say, truthfully, that I don’t recall saying or doing much of what Joe had read out.

After a few minutes, maybe (I have no idea how long it was, actually, for time ceased to have any meaning), Joe and Lorraine had heard enough. They asked if I’d leave the room and wait in the reception area of Paul’s office while they conferred. I dutifully filed out of the room and sat on the couch. I’m not being dramatic when I say that sitting there on that couch was one of the loneliest, lowest moments of my life. I was at the mercy of the two people who had just spent the last however many minutes telling me what an irredeemably poor excuse for an employee I’d been. Again, I thought, I knew that I was fucked. I tried to be stoic, to breathe, to be present in the moment, but I struggled. Really I just felt a tremendous sense of despair, of foreboding.

Lorraine calls me back in. I can’t even imagine what a pitiable sight I was, trying to summon the energy to pick myself off of that couch and subject myself to yet more of this ordeal. I walk back in and take the same seat I had occupied just a few minutes before, despondent. There’s no pretense of actual revelation or discovery now; I’ve known since Friday where this was all heading. Lorraine does most of the talking this time. She says that the allegations paint a picture of a “pattern of behavior” that constitutes “gross misconduct” under the employee behavior policy. Furthermore, my conduct has also violated the policy on not doing damage to Kellett’s reputation, as at least one parent has written to the school to complain about something I’d said or done. (I was never given any more information about this - nor do I remember if it was “parent” or “parents”.) Both she and Joe were in agreement, then, that they would give their recommendation to Paul for a disciplinary hearing. Lorraine, somehow unsure whether I understood the gravity of the situation, emphasizes to me that, subject to Paul’s judgment, the hearing could result in termination on the spot. Loss of gratuity. No references or recommendations for future employment. The end of my career in education, effectively.

That disciplinary hearing, I’m told, will take place after three working days (which means Monday the 22nd). I’m confused about the delay - apparently it’s for me to consider my options and inform the school of my intentions. I didn’t know I had options, so I ask for clarification. Joe says that the only alternative is that I resign from my position. (The old, “you can’t fire me, I quit!”) He adds that if I choose to resign, the school may honor the rest of my contract, including the gratuity. It was at this moment that I realized that my time at Kellett, one way or another, was over. There was no possible reality that would see me returning to the school next year for the .6 part-time job that I had signed a contract for back in October. Resign or be fired - those were now my choices.

Or were they? This is obviously an incredibly important decision for me, so I’m trying to gather all of the information I need to make it properly. I ask about what will happen at the disciplinary hearing if I show up to it on Monday, having not resigned. Annoyingly, nobody can tell me the answer to that question, because the only man who knows the answer - Paul - is the only one not present at this meeting. Joe tells me that Paul would have three choices: find the allegations unfounded and dismiss them entirely (0% chance), find the allegations credible but decide to give me an official reprimand only (0.01% chance), or find the allegations credible and terminate me for “gross misconduct” (99.99% chance). As I’m trying to work through all of this in my head in the moment, I express my frustration to the two of them: I’m supposed to make a decision about my future, not knowing what the odds are of Paul making one choice or the other. I know I wrote in some facetious probabilities above, but in truth, I don’t know what Paul will do, and if he somehow decided not to terminate me, I could come back to work next year and complete my part-time contract, which would be my preference. The fact that Paul wasn’t there at this meeting to answer that question directly was extremely unhelpful. In the absence of that information, there was no choice at all - I had to resign.

They try to console me, acknowledging how difficult this must be, and offer that they take no joy in having these meetings either. (Of course this does not make me feel better.) Joe asks about my support network - whether I have a “shoulder to cry on”. (I’ve had the same partner the entire time I’ve been at Kellett. You’d think the head of the school might know that.) I told them my partner leaves for Canada for the summer on Sunday. There was an iota of pleasure in seeing just how uncomfortable that made both of them.

I walked out of the office, down the steps to the ground floor, and out the main entrance of the building. I decided to take the bus both to and from this meeting today, because I’m not paying nearly $400 in round-trip taxi fares just to be told that I’m fired. (And anyway I’m unemployed now and can’t afford taxis.) I walked around the corner, across the street, and another block or so to wait for a 13X. By the time I got to the bus stop, maybe three or four minutes after walking out of the office, I was surprised to discover that I felt a genuine sense of relief and calm. In the span of about 400 meters, I had made peace with this situation.

The truth is that I don’t like my job at Kellett very much - in fact I quite often actively dislike it, and I was not at all excited about coming back part-time next year. Why did I keep accepting new contracts for five years at a job I don’t like? If you’ve ever been by my desk in the Mac office, you might have seen that I have a little Latin quotation printed out and stuck on the top of my external monitor. For a long time it said, “Lingua nulla discitur ē grammāticā sed ex auctoribus idōneīs.” (“Language isn’t learned from grammar but from reading suitable authors.”) About a year ago I changed it, and now it says, “Nē quid mē rogēs, nam prō pecūniā modo adsum.” (“Don’t ask me - I’m just here for the money.”) My high school Latin teacher put up a similar sign on his classroom door in the last years of his career, so it’s partly an homage to him. It helps that I know none of you can read it.😅

Still, there was one thing to check up on - Joe said that the school would honor my contract and gratuity if I quit, but we all know that Joe often just says shit, so I wrote to Lorraine, who contacted Paul, who confirmed in writing that, yes, the school would pay me out for the year if I quit and give me a professional reference in the future.

So, I quit.

I wrote an email to Paul, CCing Joe and Lorraine, to offer my resignation from my teaching position at Kellett. I had now missed almost a week of school, and absolutely nobody knew what was going on (everyone still just thought I was out sick for the week). In my letter, among other things, I expressed a preference to return to school and carry out my duties to my students and colleagues for the remaining seven school days. Paul did not grant this request. My last teaching day, then, was agreed to be Thursday, June 18th. From then on, I am no longer employed by Kellett School.

That’s part of the reason why I’m writing all of this here - I know that I will never be given the chance to explain any of this to my students, my tutees, or my colleagues in person, in school. No chance to say goodbye, to show my face one last time and let you all know that I’m leaving and not coming back (and it wasn’t really my choice, even if the school will announce it that way). It’s going to seem like a proper scandal, this, with me mysteriously disappearing, never to be seen again. The last time I had my students in front of me or spoke to any of you in the corridors, I had no idea that it was my last time doing any of those things. The lack of closure, the abruptness of it, remains frustrating, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

Q: How are you feeling about all of this?

As you can imagine, I’ve still got a whole host of different emotions flying around in my head, and how I feel about it has tended to change from moment-to-moment. It’s surreal. What I will say, is that I understand that the way I’ve tended to talk to kids (and even colleagues sometimes!) has led to misunderstandings. Anybody who gets to know me even a little bit learns that I can be extremely sarcastic and tend to make jokes about everything, including when social norms would seem to disallow it. I am the guy who says the thing. I am often this way with students as well. I think it’s what simultaneously endears me to many of them and alienates or confuses them. Younger students in particular will often say to me, “I can’t tell if you’re kidding.” All of this is to say that there will always be a gap between how a stuffy British administrator writing a staff conduct policy wants me to interact with students and how I actually do. That doesn’t mean that I’m not open to criticism and learning to manage that gap to minimize negative interactions. I have no malicious intent with anyone; I want my students to feel safe and comfortable, and I understand that it’s a problem worth looking into if and when they don’t.

However. I am still having a hard time reconciling the particular allegations (and my reaction to them) with the severity of the school’s decision, which I am confident would have been to fire me if I hadn’t resigned. After all, I have not admitted wrongdoing in almost any of the allegations - I simply do not recognize many of the interactions that I’m alleged to have had with students based on the descriptions read to me and can’t be sure whether they even took place. Apart from the pink bra thing, I haven’t actually admitted to almost anything that students have alleged, and yet all three of the people handling this seem unanimous in stating that I did in fact do all of these things, and that I am irredeemably unprofessional in my conduct. (One wonders what the point of the meetings even was.) The fact that the school says it will still provide a professional reference for me in the future despite also being two days from firing me for inappropriate conduct makes no sense.

Q: Do you have any wild conspiracy theories we can entertain for fun?

Of course! Thanks for asking. Here’s one: I pissed off a powerful parent who isn’t going to give it a rest unless the school gets rid of me. I even have a pretty confident guess about who the parent is. To be clear, this really is just wild speculation; all I know for certain is that at least one parent has been involved in the complaint against me. This theory, though, makes sense of the disparity (in my opinion) between crime and punishment. It’s also much easier to fire me than it would be to fire most other teachers, because I’ve only got a part-time contract for next year, and the only reason the school needs me at all is to teach Y11 GCSE Latin, which has three students in it. Yes, the school does now have to figure out what to do with those three students, but I assume that they’ll just cancel the course and hope that the parents of those three students don’t raise as much of a stink as the one who complained about me. Joe has wanted to get rid of Latin for years; this would accomplish that a year sooner. I don’t think Paul particularly likes me either; I was quite critical of his decision to extend the school day and told him as much. Nobody in SSLT is going to shed a tear over me leaving or miss me when I’m gone.

Q: What will you do now?

Well, the good news, if there is any, is that I’d already been thinking about my plans post-Kellett for more than a year. After all, the only guaranteed income I’ve really lost now is one year of part-time work. I had planned to leave the school after next year anyway, assuming I wouldn’t be offered anything with Latin gone. And that’s fine, honestly. Teaching sucks, even if you’re paid well. The job is arduous, thankless, frustrating, inflexible, antiquated, and not showing signs of improving. (I know from conversations with many of you that you’d be happy to leave education too, if you could.) So this whole mess has just moved the timeline forward a year.

There are many little things I can do to pay the bills - supply teaching, online tutoring, sex work with Peake - but I’m taking this opportunity to swing for the fences on something that’ll actually make me happy, and that’s running a small photography business. (If you didn’t know I was a photographer, well, you’re already on my website, so have a look around.) It’s not at all guaranteed to succeed, but now is the time to take a risk in the hopes of changing my life for the better. And if that crashes and burns, well, ISF has four Latin and Greek teachers - that would be a much more fitting home for me than Kellett ever was. (ISF pays better, too 😉.)

Q: Are you leaving Hong Kong?

Not anytime soon, no. My partner and I will definitely leave someday, but not in the next year at least. So please, do keep in touch! My colleagues were the only part of Kellett that I genuinely liked, so don’t be strangers. You can email me at james dot rodkey at gmail dot com, or message my HK phone - five nine two two, seven six nine nine.

Don’t contact me on LinkedIn. I fucking hate that shit.