These Teachers Were Expecting Christmas Paychecks. They Got the Exact Opposite.

The Grinch stole Christmas — and an error at Plymouth Public Schools stole Christmas paychecks from more than 1,000 Massachusetts teachers.

School district employees expecting paychecks on Friday, the day after Christmas, discovered that not only had their direct deposits not arrived in their accounts — the amounts they were expecting to receive had actually been taken out of their bank accounts, WCVB-TV reported.

“I can’t believe this was even possible,” one veteran teacher told the Patriot Ledger. “How can they take money out of your account without your permission?”

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In an email to employees, Superintendent Dr. Gary E. Maestas said the issue was caused by human error, which Town Manager Melissa Arrighi confirmed.

Arrighi said the error wouldn't be completely fixed until after the weekend.

“We have hundreds of banks associated with these accounts, and right now we are calling each, informing them of the situation and asking that they return the funds,” Arrighi said.

Some banks, including Bank of America, Citizens Bank and Santander, won't make corrections until Monday, the next business day, Maestas said.

According to Arrighi, 704 debit deductions were reversed by Saturday, while 591 deductions remain.

"We intend to work with school employees on any fees they are charged because of this mistake and have commitments from most of the banks to do that as well," Arrighi said in a statement. "We are also correcting the internal error so that this cannot happen again."

As WCVB reported, many teachers found their accounts overdrawn as a result of the error.

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