A teacher who wrote my letters of recommendation to college is threatening to revoke all the letters that he already submitted because I had to temporarily quit the debate club that he sponsors in order to get my math grade up. He has already submitted through Naviance which is what my school uses. Is this possible/ what should I do?
Talk to your principal and guidance counselor asap. This is very unprofessional for a coach.
My guess is that, as a coach, he wrote all about what a wonderful addition you are to the team-- how reliable and so on.
And then you go and quit the team, just as state and national eliminations are coming up. I’m guessing he feels that what he wrote is no longer true.
I’ve got to wonder why you chose him to write your letter if this was a possiblity.
I agree-- you need to speak to your guidance counselor.
This is a difficult situation and one that the OP should not attempt to negotiate on his own with the teacher. The OP needs to get his parents to have a meeting with the GC and teacher in the same room and figure out what to do next.
On the one hand the letter of rec should not be used as a stick to get the OP to stay in the debate club. But on the other I can imagine, as @bjkmom suggests, that the teacher wrote about how impressed she/he is by the kid who is taking a tough schedule and also playing an active role in a demanding EC like debate and now feels like that letter could affect her/his reputation since it isn’t really true anymore. We don’t know which of these, or what blend, are the drivers here.
In a meeting it should be possible to come to a decision on the next step(s). Perhaps it is the OP sending a letter to all the schools as an update, signed by the OP and the counselor, explaining that the OP has withdrawn from debate at least temporarily. Perhaps it is finding another teacher to write a rec and the first teacher withdrawing the letters if such a thing is possible. Perhaps the counselor mentioning this in the mid-year report. Or perhaps it is do nothing.