每个人都知道达琳·哈蒙, 切萨皮克2010年度中学教师,25年的教学经验, was way too sick to still be effective in the classroom.
她的学校管理人员知道这一点. 看着她被拴在吸氧机上挣扎着恢复机能, they regretfully went along with her decision to take disability retirement.
她的同事们都知道. “She had been one of the best teachers in our building,一位同事写道。, in support of 哈蒙’s disability retirement application. “现在她的身体已经不能做基本的工作,更不用说她曾经做过的那些额外的工作了.”
她的学生都知道. “他们的注意力总是放在照顾我,而不是他们真正的业务上,”哈蒙说. “My oxygen machine would be making noises, 有时我会缺氧, 我已经筋疲力尽了, 一直以来.”
她的医生知道. 在哈蒙在18个月内住院19次后,三位不同的医生提交了书面意见,支持她申请残疾福利, calling her “permanently totally disabled.”
唯一似乎不知道它为弗吉尼亚退休系统工作的人. Three times they denied 哈蒙’s application for disability retirement, leaving her without an income for almost two years, during which she lost her home and her life savings.
直到2013年1月, after the intervention of VEA’s legal staff, that 哈蒙 got the benefits—retroactively—she’d deserved all along.
在第二次被拒绝后,沮丧的哈蒙与VRS的一名员工进行了电话交谈,这一突破出现了. “Are you all just waiting for me to die?哈蒙问. 作为回应,这名员工问她是否可以“私下”和哈蒙谈谈.” 哈蒙 agreed, and the employee asked if she was a VEA member.
哈蒙, a special education teacher at Oscar Smith High School, had been in the Association for her entire teaching career, 他这么说. “You need to contact them,” the VRS employee replied.
“It was like a light bulb went off in my head,哈蒙说. “这一切都是我一个人做的. 我请不起律师. When you’re sick, you don’t think straight. So, right away I called VEA and they took it from there. Their first reaction was to ask me why I’d taken so long.”
VRS rejected 哈蒙’s disability applications because, while it was obvious that her condition was deteriorating, 没有人确切地知道出了什么问题. All doctors could tell her at first was that she had severe asthma.
她知道事情不止于此. “Why did I have to keep going into the hospital?她问道。. “The people I know with asthma live their lives and use an inhaler.”
哈蒙’s health began spiraling downward in late 2010, 当时她在观看奥斯卡·史密斯的篮球比赛时开始感觉不舒服. 她回到了家, 但她呼吸非常困难,她的家人带她去了急诊室. 医生说她得了肺炎, 给她用药, and told her to come back in 10 days for a chest X-ray.
On the way to the doctor’s office for that X-ray, 哈蒙仍然无法填满她的肺,她把头伸到“车窗外”, 像狗一样”去呼吸一些空气. 当她到达他的办公室时,她的医生不喜欢他看到的情况,直接把她送到了医院, 她在哪里待了10天, 包括圣诞节, 接受呼吸治疗. Again, she was told she had severe asthma.
决心回到学校, 哈蒙 managed to return to the classroom in mid-January 2011, only to get a call from her pulmonologist shortly thereafter, 让她再来做一次检查.
“这是一个活生生的考验,哈蒙说, 只走了两三步, my oxygen level was already in the ‘danger’ range.”
She began using supplemental oxygen round-the-clock. The Oscar Smith staff did everything it could to help her, including giving her a new parking spot close to the front door, toting her oxygen machine and tanks into her classroom for her, and allowing her to teach only on the first floor. But it soon became clear that even that wasn’t enough.
Not long after, her doctors recommended that she step down. VRS拒绝了哈蒙最初的残疾退休申请, 然后是她的第一次上诉. 她的医生, still unable to diagnose anything more than asthma, 2011年11月,哈蒙被送到杜克大学医院做肺活检.
那里的医务人员终于弄明白了是什么让哈蒙的生活如此艰难, 使用活检结果诊断慢性淋巴细胞性细支气管炎. 可悲的是, 接受诊断并没有让哈蒙开始康复——目前,这种疾病的病因和治疗方法都是未知的.
Diagnosis in hand, 哈蒙 filed her second VRS appeal, now with VEA’s help. Once again, despite now being confined to a wheelchair, she was denied.
“我当时很震惊,”她说. 我哭了又哭. I thought now that they knew my diagnosis, what more could they want?”
VEA的法务人员让她放心, 告诉她,这个决定并非完全出乎意料,这将是一个很好的起点,让哈蒙的案子在听证官面前进入最后的上诉阶段. 离析律师, 哈蒙的几位同事和三名家庭成员也提供了证词, along with the reports from the three physicians, 向听证官明确表示,哈蒙完全符合残疾的每一个法律(和常识)定义.
几个月后, 当警官的报告下来的时候, 它有14页长, including a final paragraph that included, “There is abundant and convincing…evidence of Ms. 哈蒙的肺病以及由此导致的呼吸功能不全.在这段的其余部分, 听证官还提到了哈蒙“明显的健康状况不佳”,并授予她全额残疾退休福利.
She got the news in a conference call with the VEA legal team. “It was one of the happiest days of my life,她说。.
她知道,如果没有协会的帮助,这一天永远不会到来. “I would not have had the same results without VEA,哈蒙说. “他们真的减轻了我的负担. 我作为一名初级教师成为会员是为了保护自己——我从来没有想过如果我失去了健康,它会有什么帮助. 但现在我知道任何事都可能随时发生,你会需要他们的帮助.”
现在,她急于向同事们说明协会会员资格的价值, 近与远. “你需要成为会员,她说。, “如果我的身体允许的话, 我要让人们知道这一点.”
现在, 哈蒙 remains focused on learning to live with her bronchiolitis, which will probably land her on a list soon for a double-lung transplant.
She’ll also be settling into her new home. When she learned that she’d been awarded her retirement benefits, 她微笑着说, “The very next day we put a contract on a house.”
对于那些读了达琳·哈蒙的故事并对自己说,“嗯,这是一个极端的例子. I’ll certainly never need that kind of help,” VEA legal services director Dena Rosenkrantz can only smile and say, “我希望你是对的.”
事实上, 大多数VEA成员不会被诊断为毛细支气管炎,最终依靠氧气和轮椅. 然而, VEA工作人员和律师提供的信息和建议可以帮助解决与健康有关的就业问题,如病假, workplace accommodations or retirement for permanent disability. 健康问题只是VEA提供的帮助中很小的一部分.
VEA的成员可以从VEA的工作人员那里得到凤凰体育买球就业各个方面的问题的帮助:
许多学校员工, including lots who “never thought it could happen to me,将需要一名协会律师:
无论你的情况如何, Rosenkrantz建议你第一个打电话给当地的UniServ办公室,不要过了几个月才拿起电话, 就像哈蒙那样. Fortunately for her, her call didn’t come too late.
罗森克兰茨说:“我们可以成为各种职场问题的信息来源。. 你可以从学校部门的人力资源办公室得到可靠的信息, 但有时你需要外界的信息和建议, or you aren’t ready to share plans with your employer quite yet.
当然, 除了能够得到VEA工作人员的倾听和联系协会律师之外, VEA会员资格还为您提供教育工作者就业责任(EEL)保险计划, 在民事诉讼中为学校就业案件提供二级保险, and to cover damages assessed against you in such suits. 如果你成功地为涉及学校雇佣行为的刑事指控辩护, 你最多可以收回35美元,律师费和诉讼费.
达琳·哈蒙的几位教学同事在她的上诉过程中为她挺身而出, 在一名实况调查官员面前作证,证明她在生病前的出色教学,以及她的健康状况对她的影响有多大.
“她是老师的老师,塔米卡·戴维森, 奥斯卡史密斯老师和CEA成员, 他在VRS听证会上说. “她可以走进任何教室,吸引每个人的注意力. She doesn’t believe in sitting behind a desk to teach. 她是个亲力亲为的老师.”
戴维森, 和哈蒙共事了10年, noted that things changed drastically after 哈蒙 became ill. “她的精神崩溃了,”她说. “This was her calling, what she is supposed to do.”
Dependent on an oxygen tank and unable to move much or leave her classroom, “她不可能教书,戴维森说. “她不会写字. 她很难回忆起事实, 这是不可能的——当你试图教育某人时,你不可能做到这一点.”
Fellow Oscar Smith teacher Sharon 威利斯 agreed. “She was a mover and a shaker,” she testified. “She showed us how to be better teachers. She didn’t know it, but she became my mentor.”
威利斯, 也是CEA成员, watched helplessly as her mentor struggled, 并作证说哈蒙每天早上都要费很大力气才能进入大楼, other teachers writing her lessons on her blackboard for her, people running errands in the building for her, 对她的学生的负面影响, 以及哈蒙自己的抑郁症, 是由她的健康问题引起的.
“It’s heartbreaking to see her health where it is,” 威利斯 said.
“I think it’s testimony to what a wonderful person Ms. 哈蒙是我们让她的同事坐了几个小时来确保你知道她不能再教书了,” VEA attorney Milton Brown said in his closing statement at the hearing.
It’s also a strong testimony to the power of the truth.
Teacher shortages are a serious issue across the country. Here in Virginia, there are currently over 3648个教学职位空缺. (FY23)
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