80-year-old teacher sues to get job back after arguing with school about bathroom breaks

BY JOSE MARTINEZ    
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, August 3rd 2011, 4:00 AM


 
Craig Warga/News
80 year old Lillie Leon, a 34 year public school teacher, is suing to get her job back after she was fired for insubordination when she couldn't handle walking her class across the school building for toileting.
An 80-year-old Queens kindergarten teacher is suing to get her job back, claiming she was fired for griping about having to lead her entire class on long walks to the restroom any time one of the tykes had to go.

Lillie Leon, who worked as a city school teacher for more than three decades, was notified last week that she had lost her job at Public School 117 in Briarwood, Queens.

The grandmother of four filed suit in Manhattan in an attempt to overturn her expulsion for insubordination.
"Teaching is my passion," Leon told the Daily News. "But I was put in a position where it was almost impossible for me to safeguard the safety of the children."

Leon, who worked in banking before becoming a teacher in 1978, contends school officials ignored her request to teach first-graders, who wouldn't require supervision on bathroom breaks.

Instead, Leon said, she was told she'd have to lead an entire class of kindergartners through a busy cafeteria any time one of the kids needed to use the restroom. She refused.

"You're dealing with 4- and 5-year-olds who can't fully control themselves," said her lawyer, Stewart Karlin. "And it's really not educationally appropriate to take all that time for restroom duties."

The girls' bathroom, she said, was on the opposite side of the school from her assigned classroom.

"We would have had to walk through the lunchroom when the older children were there," Leon said.

Not to mention, Karlin said, the octogenarian's bad knees.

"She teaches well but she can't really walk quickly," he said. "She's on a cane, she's 80 years old and she's got leg problems."

"Why would you even assign an 80-year-old teacher to a classroom without a bathroom?" he asked.

Leon's petition, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, also says school administrators assigned her to a room where she had previously complained about the air conditioning and where parents had griped about "filthy" conditions and desks that were built for second-graders.

A spokeswoman for the City Law Department said lawyers are reviewing the suit. A Department of Education spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.

Leon, who also has a suit pending against the city in federal court, said she just wants to return to the classroom for another year before retiring. She was earning $100,049 a year, records show, and didn't appear to have had any past disciplinary problems.

"I know the children will miss me," she said. "Even from when I started at PS 117, the assistant principal would say that I had my own fan club."



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/08/03/2011-08-03_80yearold_teacher_sues_to_get_job_back_after_arguing_with_school_about_bathroom_.html#ixzz1TxbGPbbp