My oh my, what were Calderdale council thinking of? Isn't bad enough to lose a great teacher – do they really need to be seen to be hounding her out of town as well? Miss Rusty – aka Leonora Rustamova – was fired in May 2009 for reckless disregard for confidentiality and child safeguarding issues after the book she was writing was accidentally published on the web without being password protected. The book included the first names of five boys in her class.
And now Calderdale council have edged her out of appearing at a local Readers and Writers' Festival. Having first invited her to take part in the event, they then notified her that they planned to read a disclaimer distancing themselves from her novel before she took the stage.
Miss Rusty worked with severely disaffected students. She wrote redemptive stories about her pupils using their own real life experiences and read them out to them on Friday afternoons – if they behaved during the week.
Stop! Don't Read is the story of a group of lads who break into their school to delete CCTV footage of themselves being naughty and discover that a drug gang is using the school to hide its stash. The children alert the police and end up as heroes.
It's true the novel contains controversial themes – it has passages on drug taking, smoking, sex and truancy. But the teacher-turned-author presumably felt that these were all issues that her problem children needed to address.
The book project was deemed a success. The boys' behaviour and academic performance improved, and Rusty's headteacher showered her with "enthusiastic, generous praise".
But then Rusty's husband accidentally published the book online while he was printing copies for the boys to keep, and Rusty was quickly served her marching orders despite protestations from the families involved and a demonstration by children at the school.
Next month Miss Rusty will face an employment appeals tribunal, and in December she will be up before the General Teaching Council.
More education news from the Guardian
• More than one-fifth of universities and colleges in England are considering dropping the price of tuition fees to below 7,500, according to a government watchdog
• The proportion of state school pupils entering the English baccalaureate of academic subjects at GCSE fell slightly in this summer's exams, figures from the Department for Education show
• Did you know that a student's A-level results are partly determined by how the year group did on average at GCSE? No? You're not alone – most teachers are not aware of this either. 'Cohort referencing' was until recently an optional tool for exam boards. But from 2011 Ofqual have made it an essential part of their code of practice, to avoid so-called 'grade drift' and the usual public outcry about falling standards.
• Lynsey Hanley makes a passionate and well-argued defence of the power of education to improve social mobility. She says social geographer Danny Dorling's new book, Fair Play, contains "the evidence to prove it".
"Fair Play, shows that in Labour's final term the number of working-class students in higher education began to increase at a faster rate than those from middle-class backgrounds. The increase followed sustained investment in schools and pupils, in particular those who qualified for free school meals and so for the education maintenance allowance."
Education news from around the web
• Free school suspends boy, 11, over haircut that's 3mm too short - Evening Standard
• David Cameron attacks Welsh Government for damaging schools - Wales Online
• One in five boys aged five cannot write their own names - Daily Mail
• Agricultural colleges plan merger as 'rural university' - Scotsman
On the Guardian careers blog
What can you do with a degree in design studies? Whether you've got your eye on a specific design career or you're mulling over your options, join our experts for careers advice from 1pm today
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Live chat: improving collaboration between HE and FE. Colleges and universities will increasingly compete for students so what will future partnership look like? To join the debate on Twitter, use the hashtag #HElivechat, or join in the discussion live on the website between 12-2
On the Guardian Teacher Network
A lesson on democracy focusing on the fight for democracy in Libya; to PGCE or not to PGCE: our student-teacher blogger on why she chose her training route; and how to bring debating activities into class
Education seminars from Guardian Professional
The Guardian Teacher Network runs training sessions for teachers throughout the year in Yorkshire and London. Upcoming courses include:
Is your school thinking of becoming an academy?
This seminar will provide an independent view of the advantages and disadvantages of converting to academy status. It will look at the process of conversion, the implications of academy status, and the support and funding available. November 30, in London. February 21, 2012 in Yorkshire
Protecting young people in a digital age
Led by school digital safety experts, this one-day course will provide safeguarding policy and Ofsted criteria updates, as well as looking at social media and offering practical advice to help your school develop its digital safety policies. February 1, 2012 in London. February 8, 2012 in Yorkshire.
For a full list visit the Guardian Teacher Network
Teachers seminars from the Guardian Education Centre
Insight into digital journalism
Spend a day at the Guardian and find out how an international news media organisation works. The seminar will focus on aspects of digital journalism including writing and editing for a news website, the relationship between print and web journalism, live blogging, the use of social media, podcasting and video production.
2 November, Kings Place, London
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