Regrettably, the postings have become needlessly personal and those who have decided to go down that road really don't deserve an audience. We are all better than that however I hope those posters will have a great future wherever they may be and perhaps have learned a lesson that airing dirty laundry by naming names comes across as bitter rather than productive.

I disagree, this board benefits greatly from its anonymity and relative freedom of speech.

With all due respect, it is entirely possible that they've probably been forced to resort to such dirty tactics due to their treatment at your school. There's no smoke without fire and if I was a fresh off the boat foreigner, I would not want to risk accepting a job at your school with that slight possibility of going through hell and back, because flight tickets are expensive.

I've previously had a bad experience and I would attribute part of that due to failing to take on board warnings that were placed on forums such as this, before accepting a job. As for me personally, I do not like the personal attack route either, I prefer to use other tactics. However, as I have empathy for those that suffer at the hands of organizations of a similar nature, I am willing not only criticize but ask very uncomfortable questions of those who may have given fellow teachers grief.

Contrary to common belief, the posters on this board don't take every person that complains seriously, you do occasionally come across the odd poster that complains, then you take a brief look at his spelling, grammar, lack of qualifications etc and then proceed to wonder how he got a job in the first place. Then again, it was the school that hired him, so the responsibility to deal with the fallout rests with them. Regardless, I feel that it is the case that the vast majority of one-off complaining posters as naive, stupid or silly as they may have been; actually tend to have a good valid reason to feel that they have been treated wrongly.

At the end of the day, it is your word against theirs. Let them make comments, you are also free to respond, you are by no means defenseless here. We will happily judge who we believe to be the winners and losers of such squabbles.