Ohio Teacher is Suing School District Because of Her Fear of Young Children

Some things…I cannot make up.  This is one of them.

A teacher at a Cincinnati High School is suing her school district after they transferred her to the junior high school.  Maria C. Waltherr-Willard, 61, used to teach French in the Mariemont School District for decades but after the high school decided to offer the language course online, she was reassigned to teach Spanish to the junior high kids.

Waltherr-Williard retired in 2011 after trying, and failing, to get the school district to reassign her back to the high school.  Her contention was that her reassignment to a school with elementary age children was disability discrimination because she has a phobic fear of young children.

A teacher, molder of the youth, has a phobic fear of children.  This would like a chef with a phobic fear of beef.  Chicken salads? Fine. Pizza and pasta? Bring it on. Steak? I quit.  To be honest, both my parents have spent my entire life in the education system and I have heard the horror stories.  I most definitely think that teachers salaries are a joke and the more we invest in the education, the better off this entire country will be in the long run.  What I cannot get on board with is people who try to beat the system. 

This woman probably retired about 7 years before she should have and now she is trying to supplement the money lost by early retirement.  Are you telling me you are going from teaching 15-18 year olds and you are fine but when entering a school where you have to teach 12-14 year olds your blood pressure rises?  I’m not a teacher, but I’m almost certain that is what happens everyday, to every teacher in America.  And I’m not trying to discredit the phobia itself, I’m trying to discredit the way in which this woman is playing her card.  If she were relegated to K-4, I could see where she was coming from.  Those kids are annoying and always seem to have some shit on their hands that ends up on my shirt.

Yes, teachers are underpaid and underappreciated but that does not give this woman the right to run the Mariemont School District through the ringer.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say a teacher that spent decades in the high school was angry about her reassignment and sought revenge for her treatment.

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