School Daze 0
This story nagged at me all day yesterday (more detail at the link, emphasis added).
Donika Anderson-Wagner was pulled out of her classroom on Dec. 14, 2012, after a parent told a school employee that one of Anderson-Wagner’s students had contracted the skin-burrowing mites, according to the lawsuit.
The disease is spread by prolonged skin-to-skin contact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The school employee sent an email to Assistant Principal Bermina Nickerson at noon that day saying the student indicated the scabies came from her teacher.
Bayside High School is just up the road a piece.
Natch, no evidence of infection on the part of the teacher was found, but she was still humiliated by her employer for no good reason. Why a doctor’s note would not have been sufficient baffles me.
My mother was a teacher (if you want your own version of hell, trying having your mother as your Algebra II teacher, but that’s another story) and my Ex was a school nurse. The principal of my high school was in the same bridge club as my parents (in fact, when my mother passed away, he was at the funeral–the last living member of that bridge club). I know a little bit about how schools (at least used to) work.
I cannot fathom a school administration demeaning a teacher in such a manner (I do have a theory–kudos to anyone who can figure it out in the comments). The best I can make of it is that management went off half-cocked, deciding to humiliate a member of the staff on the contents of a questionable-at-best email.
If you want bad performance from your staff, one sure way to get it is to treat your employees like dirt.
