Haimy:
You wrote: “Relieving an incompetent Rebbi of his job is a very rare occurrence in the chareidi world we live in. It’s not just the financial distress, it’s his self-esteem as a member of a kehillah. ”
Good midos are a mainstay of living as a Torah Jew. No one can legitimately argue against that. But business is business. It is unconscionable to allow a poor rebbi to wreck my child, possibly for life, because of our concern for his self-esteem. I certainly advocate for preserving his self-worth, and I would never take someone whose problem is underperformance as someone to punish. But my obligation here is to prevent the severe damage that can happen to a child who loses a year of education, and possibly gets harmed by unnecessary and damaging discipline by someone who is in the wrong job.
It is not likely that we will witness much perfection, not in ourselves, and certainly not in the chinuch system. But we are never absolved of the responsibility to seek improvement. There are punches that will happen. We might find milder ways to deliver the termination notice, perhaps with warnings earlier, and the idea of helping to find other employment sounds nice (despite being unlikely).
In past years, there were multiple situations that achieved public exposure of rebbeim who were found to have been severely inappropriate with talmidim. They fought against dismissal, citing their families, needs for parnosoh, shidduchim for their children, etc. I found these forms of resistance intolerable, to the point of nausea. Should a pedophile be kept in a position of risk to countless others because he needs to marry off his children? Anyone with positive number IQ believe that? This thread is not about a criminal rebbi, but someone who just ain’t got what it takes to do the job. The primary responsibility is to provide a good rebbi to the class, not a salary to pay for his child’s wedding.