The departing principal, who was notified with a phone call late last year that her seven years relieving in the position was over, is a loser.

So too are the students and their parents at this tight-knit school community who have fought tooth and nail to keep a principal they are all clearly extremely fond of.

And the new principal should not be forgotten. She is walking into a potentially hostile environment, not of her making.

The situation is certainly unusual. To have a principal, or any teacher, acting in a relieving position for seven years is as rare as it is unreasonable.

But it is not illegal. Despite what the private sector might think about industrial rules which give casual and temporary staff permanent tenure after relatively short periods, teachers in the public sector, including this principal, can be kept in limbo for years.

For the relieving principal seven years at Carcoar school amounted to nothing when it came to job security and her career.

The department rolls out a familiar line about the need to cater for teachers who staff remote and difficult schools and do so with a brownie point scheme which guarantees them priority placements later.

Certainly there must be some incentive for teachers to staff remote and less desirable schools, but to do so at the expense of a teacher who has been at a school for seven years is outrageous.

So what should parents and teachers do now?

They should start by giving the Teachers Federation an almighty wake-up call.

The industry is being worked over by the department with casualisation and employment conditions such as this which the union should be fighting every step of the way. Instead it has fallen into line.

Unless the union wins a fairer employment structure for teachers in this position, the efforts of the school community of Carcoar will have been wasted.