** Cross-posted since Rant is not visible to all **
All,
One of our friends, who has cancer, is being forced out of her job as a teacher because the county won't let her take leave without pay to do a 4 month treatment program.
it's very surprising and saddening to see your friend in the paper, like this:
here's the article (registration required, sorry):
//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61570-2005Jan9.html
the bottom line is that she is a very good teacher, in a county that is always complaining that there is a shortage of very good teachers, and they won't bend the rules to let her do leave WITHOUT pay because she has not been in the job 'long enough'. So as a result, she is going to be fired, and jobless, with cancer that may or may not be treatable.
Please help by flooding the email boxes of the Loudoun County School District's superintendent with email protesting the firing of Alison Yowell.
schools@loudoun.k12.va.us
Attn: Dr. Edgar B. Hatrick, Superintendent
That's sad to hear. One of my brother's elementary school teachers died of cancer and she was teaching up until she was physically unable. I don't know if she did any treatment programs that required long term leaves, but I'm pretty sure she at least missed some days for short term things. Everyone was very supportive of her, the school included. Given, it was a small school with extremely involved parents (just last year they fundraised the full salary for a teaching position that was going be the victim of district budget cuts), but still. Once she got really ill and had to stop teaching they had this whole phone network thing going, so all the families would know any news, and were doing everything they could to help her. What's the parent involvement like at your friend's school? Parents voices are often the strongest in educational debates.
It is really odd how different systems set stuff up. In most systems, teachers can donate "leave" to others. (If I accumulate 10 days a year and never use them, so after 7 years, I have 70 days, I can "donate" up to x number to another teacher).
