CA TEACHER’S PLEA MOST LIKELY WILL BE IGNORED

I would like to address this board meeting in person, but I am currently under a doctor’s care related to work related injuries suffered at X High School. I think it is important to bring up this expensive medical situation and unnecessary cost that will be borne by our district.

I work with students who have severe disabilities – most of whom are not able to speak or be left unattended. Under state and federal provisions, all students are entitled to a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). My students can learn, my students strive to be accepted by peers and by the community at large, and they are loved members of families who live in the Santa Ana community.

I chose to teach this unique category of students. I have memberships in professional organizations that address the educational issues my students and their families face. I am an avid reader and researcher on how best to teach to my specialty students and how to assist their families achieve success at home. I am a NCLB highly qualified teacher. I take my professional teaching specialty seriously and have earned the respect of my peers.

I began to be unfairly threatened with job loss and became the subject of unfair and abusive disciplinary actions after I raised concerns about inappropriate behavior directed at my students as well as important safety and legal issues that needed remedy by site administrators. Instead of fixing the problems, X’s principal chose to try and drive me from my teaching assignment using a variety of tactics that should not be sanctioned by any school district. Her attempt of a “quick fix” of the problems has created a bundle of new problems.

Harassment and abuse of authority resulted in the medical crisis I am in right now. My own medical costs have gone up over 3,000% in deductibles, medications and office visits. I imagine this would affect our group insurance, impacted by this tremendous rise in medical services, as I combat the effects of improper management practices. There are a number of others at this site who has been made ill. Mine is not a unique situation.

Other district employees are off on sick leave, some complain of medical symptoms and prescription costs related to unnecessary work stress, still others have left completely. Turnover and staff absence data, if analyzed, would reveal a problem that should have been attended to by the former superintendent. How prevalent is employee mistreatment, overall, in the district?

I believe that something as simple as an explicit anti-bully policy would go a long way to curb medical and legal costs. Enforced, simple guidelines would help define a healthy workplace that is cost effective.

Pleasant Valley School District in California adopted the following new language on May 1, 2002 to their personnel policy regarding discipline: Article XVI, Section B.5 Discourteous and/or unprofessional treatment of the public, students or of fellow employees. Discourteous treatment shall include, but not be limited to: intimidation, showing hostility, threats, humiliation of, insults, or slander

There are two primary reasons why all employers should have a harassment policy: • To create a productive work environment. A strong and consistently enforced policy against sexual and other forms of harassment shows your commitment to a productive work environment. Harassment that is unchecked has the very real potential to debilitate your operations through decreased morale and productivity and increased employee turnover. • To prevent liability. Court decisions and guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) consistently show that you can decrease your liability for hostile work environment harassment, when it involves coworkers, by maintaining and enforcing internal policies to prevent and deal with harassment. That includes involvement by supervisors.

The superintendent’s call to get the attention of district employees to eye the problem of spiraling health care costs really did work. We all have to realize that we are in this together. Has Dr. X kept her eyes on our school, like she promised to do back in 2005? Quick fixes and sweeping problems under the rug can no longer be options going forward. Please don’t remove health care options that we can control when intentional infliction of unnecessary medical injuries is still unchecked and still beyond a teacher’s control at this time in this school district.

Thank you for your consideration, Dedicated Special Education Teacher of High School Students who have Severe Disabilities at X High School.

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