Asthmatic teacher fights to retain job

She took leaves to avoid virus, but district sent notice of termination

An Ellington elementary school teacher with severe asthma is fighting termination after she took extended leaves during the school year due to health concerns about contracting COVID19 at work.

Now that Windermere School teacher Maura Klesczewski is vaccinated, she is willing to go back to work, her lawyer said. But legal counsel for the Ellington Board of Education said Wednesday ahead of a public hearing on the issue that her window of opportunity to do so has passed.

In a termination notice from the school district dated April 7, Ellington Superintendent of Schools Scott Nicol said Klesczewski submitted a request with a doctor’s note in July to limit physical contact with others. Klesczewski suffers from severe asthma, and her doctor told her that if she contracted COVID-19, she would likely die, according to a letter sent in mid-April by Klesczewski’s lawyer to the board to request the hearing.

In mid-August, Nicol said human resources explained to Klesczewski that the doctor’s note didn’t qualify her for disability accommodations. However, Nicol said “due to district need” Klesczewski was added to a list of teachers providing online instruction and working from empty classrooms, to limit her contact with students.

But her attorney, Andrew Houlding of Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, P.C., told the Courant Klesczewski repeatedly faced techni

cal glitches while trying to teach her kindergarteners virtually. Houlding said she ended up having to be within inches of tech support staff and other educators who were trying to help fix the computer issues, and despite wearing masks, she wasn’t comfortable with that.

In mid-September, Klesczewski submitted Family and Medical Leave Act documents to the district, and her request for protected, unpaidleave throughDec. 23 was approved, Nicol said in the termination notice. After her protected leave through December ran out, Houlding said she continued to remain out through February on paid sick leave that she’d previously accrued.

“Maura chose to accept the advice of her doctor to stay out from work in the school facilities ... because she believed the school facilities were unable to provide her that level of safety that her doctors suggested she needed,” Houlding said.

In late February, Klesczewski, who has taught in the district more than 20 years, requested unpaid leave for the rest of the school year and to return the following school year.

According to Houlding’s letter to the board, Klesczewski wrote: “I amrequesting a protected leave of absence through the remainder of the school year to hold myteaching position. My hope is that the vaccine will be proven to be safe for me to get. When that happens, I’ll be so happy to return to my teaching position for the 2021-2022 school year.”

Nicol, the superintendent, wrote that on March 8 he denied Kl esczewski’ s request for leave through the end of the school year, stating that she was to return to work by March15, resign or the board of education wouldbeginthe process to consider her termination. Houlding explained the superintendent acknowledged that there was discretion under Klesczewski’s collective bargaining agreement to provide an extended leave withoutpay, butsaidthe school system needed to fill theposition becausestudents needed instruction.

Houl ding said Kl esczew ski received her first COVID-19 vaccine on March 5 “at first opportunity.” However, she would not be fully protected until about five weeks later, after waiting the instructed amount of time to receive her second dose, as well as an additional two weeks after that dose.

But Frederick Dorsey of Kainen, Escalera & McHale, P.C., the board of education’s attorney, said many residents were not yet fully vaccinated during the late February-early March period, and Klesczewski’s vaccine status was not tied to the administration asking her to resume working. “That’s not the issue,” he said.

At the end of March, the superintendent said in the termination notice that after “extensive discussions” with Klesczewski and union representatives, she agreed to a release and settlement agreement that included her resignation, in consideration for the board providing unpaid leave for the rest of the 2020-2021 school year and stopping the termination process. However, after all parties signed the separation agreement, Nicol said Klesczewski rescinded her signature on March 29 to allow time to discuss the contract with her attorney.

Both Houl ding and Dorsey said the agreement allowed Klesczewski to revoke her signature within a sevenday period, which she did. Houlding also clarified that the contract she signed was not aletter of resignation, but rather an agreement that she would sign one, “which she never did of course.”

Nicol said he informed Klesczewski on April 1 that if she didn’t implement the agreement by the end of day April 6, the board’s termination process would resume. Houlding said he and his client replied that same day proposing that Klesczewski return to the classroom in mid-April, since she was getting her second vaccine dose April 2 and would be fully protected two weeks later. They asked for unpaid leave through that time.

But then, on April 6, Houl ding wrote Kl esczew ski asked her doctor to reauthorize her return to work that same day “since it appeared that she would be substanti ally protected by the vaccine even if it had not reached full effectiveness.” The doctor agreed to do so.

However, Dorsey, the board of education’ s attorney, said: “She was never available to come to work, and all of her doctor’s notes said she couldn’t come to work until next school year. Only when she was told that she was goingtoreceive the [termination] letter from the superintendent ... shesuddenlycame in the next day with a note saying, ‘Oh yes I can work now.’ “

“All the other documentation leading up to the decision to terminate was based on different things her doctor said, but now they weren’t true because her job was on the line,” he added.

In the termination notice dated April 7, Nicol said Klesczewski was excessively absent from work, had exhausted all of her paid and unpaid leave and had requested unpaid leave that her absence would“continue through the end of the 202021 school year and indefinitely thereafter.”

“In anyone or all the above, you have failed to comply with the minimal acceptable standards of the Ellington Board of Education ... for continued employment in the [Ellington School] System,” he wrote, stating the school system must “act now in the best interests of the System’s students to fill yourposition.”

“As has been previously discussed with you, should you determine that you are resigning your employment, continuation of this process could be unnecessary,” he added.

Houlding said he felt the superintendent’s attitude has been punitive during an unprecedented time. But Dorsey said Klesczewski’s window of opportunity to return to work is already closed, as she was expected to come back in early 2021.

Both lawyers agreed that Klesczewski has the right to a hearing under the Teacher Tenure Act. Dorsey said during the first hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, the administration wasexpected to present five witnesses. Next week, Klesczewski is expected to share her side, so it was “highly unlikely” any decisions would be made Wednesday.