A history and philosophy teacher who was let go after managing to skip school for 20 of her 24-year tenure has promised to challenge the dismissal in court.
Cinzia Paolina De Lio, a 51-year-old irate professor who taught in the Italian city of Venice, was discovered to have missed work for two decades out of the two and a half decades that she had worked as a public servant.
According to reports, she was fired in 2017 after an inspection revealed her chronic absences, but she appealed the decision in court and was later reinstated.
According to reports, De Lio submitted over 100 petitions for excused absences.
However, the Italian Ministry of Education appealed the lower court’s decision to reinstate De Lio to the country’s Supreme Court. The ministry contended that she missed no work during her first ten years as a professor and supported her prolonged absence over the following 14 years by a number of documents, including authorization for helping disabled family members and maternity and breastfeeding vacations.
In the previous 24 years, De Lio submitted 67 certificates of sick leave, 16 requests for personal time off, 7 periods of paid parental leave, 24 requests to assist family members with various disabilities, 5 requests to participate in various training courses, according to the Italian newspaper La Republica, As well as childbirth, breastfeeding, and multiple requests for leave to take care of her children’s health, she has had two leaves of absence due to work-related accidents.
Some former pupils of Professor De Lio have made disparaging comments regarding the way she approaches her work.
“She never had continuity: she came for a few days and then took long periods of sick leave. We changed several substitute teachers or, sometimes, they made us leave school early,” Francesca B., now a 22-year-old university student, told La Republica.
De Lio’s contract was recently terminated, and the Italian Supreme Court recently affirmed that decision, ruling that the authorities had good cause to fire her.