Parents picketed outside Lazear Elementary School in Oakland yesterday over an allegedly unfit teacher. Parents claim the teacher in question "took a smoking break during class, leaving his students unattended; that he locked a student in the classroom this past fall and recently grabbed a child by the collar; that he has fallen asleep in class; and that he made the children write, over and over, 'I will learn how to shut my mouth.'" (In the teacher's defense, children are annoying at times.) During yesterday's protest, which also went down at the school district headquarters, "only about 60 of the school's 300 students came to class."

Parents, according to the Oakland Tribune, say "the school and district administrations have responded far too slowly to their concerns in the face of rules that protect teachers' employment rights." Probably because firing a public school teacher is a lengthy process.