(no subject)

[geekchick]

Alison Yowell teaches in the Loudoun County public school system, in Sterling. She also has Hodgkin's disease, which had been in remission but recurred in September. After she used up all her sick days (ten, plus three personal days) for treatment and asked to take unpaid leave, her school administrators, in a stunning display of sensitivity, fired her. Well, technically she was forced to resign before she was fired because she hadn't been working for the school system long enough to be eligible for leave without pay.

Yowell said she knew Loudoun policies when she was hired.

"I know what they've done is completely legal," Yowell said. "I don't feel this policy is ethical."

School Board member Priscilla B. Godfrey (Blue Ridge), who chairs the committee that oversees personnel issues, said the district views matters differently.

"As an employer, you have to watch out for yourself," Godfrey said. "To her, it would be an unethical result. But legally, if you have a policy on your books, everyone is treated the same, and everybody has to toe the line, whatever that line may be. Otherwise, it's not a policy."

I can't imagine why Loudoun says they're having trouble recruiting enough qualified teachers. If I can go work in Fairfax, one county over, and not have to wait 90 days to take unpaid leave in case of medical emergency, why wouldn't I?

Comments

[dionysia.livejournal.com]

I am sympathetic, however, FMLA doesn't kick in until 1 year of employment. I'm surprised she's not in a teacher's union.

[geekchick]

The article made it sound like she is part of at least some organization that encouraged her to resign rather than be fired in order to keep her teaching record clean. If she'd been teaching in Fairfax County, she'd have been eligible immediately for leave without pay; Loudoun makes new hires wait 90 days.

Still, I know if I was looking to teach, I'd not want to hire on to a school system that will fire me if I happen to get a serious illness requiring debilitating treatment on something other than their schedule, especially when I can go work in the next county over and not have to deal with it.

[dionysia.livejournal.com]

Of course, if she were fired, she would have been eligible for Unemployment.

The disparities between the counties is odd. Although, not so much odd as the disparity between companies who make new employees wait 90 days for benefits and those whose benefits kick in on day one.

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised the ADA didn't kick in. I thought most chronic conditions were covered by it.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Nope. It's actually quite tricky. It doesn't cover ILLNESSES, it only covers DISABILITIES. And only then, disabilities where the person CAN do their job with appropriate accommodations. In this case, she couldn't do her job at all for some unknown period of time. She should have been covered under short term disability, but hadn't worked there long enough. Pretty mean of them, though, you gotta admit.

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

That's a cute Yomiko icon. Meganeko ga suki da!

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

I must admit I haven't read the comic. I obviously must fix that, though! The creator of the icon is wintersweet, in case you're interested. She has quite a number of them from this comic, as well as others.

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that icon is from the ROD (Read or Die) anime. (The single disc, 3 episode OAV, not the ~7 disc TV series.) I haven't seen a manga version but that certainly doesn't mean there isn't one.

If you have Cartoon Network, they've shown the R.O.D. OAV a couple times in the past months, maybe they will show it again soon. I don't know if Netflix has it or not, though they do seem to be carrying the TV series, which is a sequel to the OAV.

R.O.D. is really good imho, especially for such a short series; they do a good job developing key characters and relationships even though they have very little time to do it. It's well done, imaginative and different, not just the same old stuff rehashed. The plot is not overly complex, but you do have to pay close attention to catch all the details, and there are a few very big loose ends left untied. The one caveat I would offer is, stick with the Japanese soundtrack, even if you need to turn the subtitles on. Yomiko is annoyingly whiny on the English track, and I really can't figure out why.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info. We don't actually have Cable (shocking, I know!), and we haven't had a Netflix subscription for over a year. But armed with the info, I'm sure we can find it one way or another. For one thing, we've got a friend who runs a Comic store. With the excellent info you have provided, I'm sure he could order it for us. :^)

Thanks!