Posted on 12/09/2003 10:48:45 PM PST by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - A Pinellas County, Fla., teacher - who is disabled and works with disabled students - claims she is being fired because she voiced her support for another disabled Florida woman: Terri Schindler Schiavo.
Rus Cooper-Dowda told CNSNews.com Tuesday that the Pinellas County School Board was set to fire her Tuesday night for sharing her opinion about the Schiavo case in response to a reporter's question. The school board responded that no reason was needed to fire the probationary teacher.
Terri Schindler Schiavo is the 39-year-old woman who suffered a severe brain injury under questionable circumstances in 1990. Doctors hired by her husband, and a court-appointed expert who reviewed Terri's medical records, believe she is in a "Persistent Vegetative State," while doctors employed by her parents and unpaid experts have said that Terri's condition could improve with therapy and rehabilitation.
Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, received court permission to have Terri's feeding tube removed so she would die by dehydration and starvation. But the move was blocked, initially through legal actions brought by Terri's parents and, then, by a law passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush.
Schiavo is currently challenging the constitutionality of the legislation, dubbed "Terri's Law" by its supporters.
After a Florida court gave Schiavo permission to let his wife die in early October, Cooper-Dowda responded to a question from a local television reporter about the judge's decision.
"I did a very brief interview, offsite, on my own time, not identifying as a teacher, where I said, 'As a disabled Floridian of faith, female, with disabilities, this is scary,'" Cooper-Dowda explained. "And I was really clear that 'you cannot say I am a teacher' and the reporter was disappointed because I teach special ed[ucation], but agreed."
What the 26-year-veteran teacher could not have known at the time was that many of the students at Bay Point Middle School - where she taught children with behavioral, emotional and learning disabilities - were watching the local news that evening for extra credit. Word of Cooper-Dowda's "stardom" traveled quickly.
"The next morning I came in [and] there was a [regular monthly] faculty meeting, the Christian faculty who saw it ... said it was 'a really great, life-affirming interview,'" Cooper Dowda explained. "Then, for the first time, I started hearing, 'Well, you don't fit in. Teachers with public opinions like that don't fit in.'"
Cooper-Dowda said she was also called a "religious wacko" on more than one occasion, even though she only mentioned her religious beliefs in passing during the interview.
"The principal, various teachers, my supervisor, aides, paraprofessionals, everyone was saying, 'Teachers aren't allowed to have opinions, especially about Terri Schiavo, and especially if you're already a seminary grad[uate],'" Cooper-Dowda alleged. "And I'm thinking, 'Wow! I thought this was America?"
The situation went from bad to worse, Cooper-Dowda claimed, when several copies of a booklet she had written detailing the similarities between her experience and that of Terri Schindler Schiavo appeared on campus. At age 30, the teacher contracted a severe case of lupus that left her unable to speak and with very little control over her motor functions. She listened helplessly as doctors incorrectly diagnosed her as being in a Persistent Vegetative State, the same condition some physicians believe afflicts Terri, and described her chances for recovery as "hopeless."
"I could hear all that," Cooper-Dowda recalled. "It took a huge effort to finally communicate, 'I'm in here!' And I barely survived."
Though she could not speak, Cooper-Dowda would use her finger to write the word "no" in the air when doctors discussed removing her life support. Those same doctors diagnosed her attempts to communicate as "seizure activity" and sedated her. According to Cooper-Dowda, the harder she tried to communicate with her caretakers, the more heavily she was sedated.
The curiosity of one nurse saved Cooper-Dowda's life, she said.
"She refused to believe that the systematic pattern of tapping and blinking and moving and moaning was not communication," Cooper-Dowda recalled. "So, when I went to Terri Schiavo's October 2002 hearing ... I saw the videos for the first time and I was writing about it and I thought, 'That could have been me,' and then I thought, 'Oh, it was me!'"
That nurse put ink on the incapacitated woman's fingertip. Cooper-Dowda was then able to write the letter "y" for the word "yes," and "n" for "no," proving that the doctors had been wrong about her condition.
Since then, Cooper-Dowda has completed a second master's degree and given birth to a son, who is about to enter college. She told CNSNews.com that after 25 years of teaching at private schools, she finally realized her dream of working with disabled students in a public school system. She began work at Bay Point Middle School on Aug. 1.
But after the television interview and the unexpected arrival of her writing about Terri Schiavo's case appeared on campus, Cooper-Dowda said it became almost impossible to do the job she so loved.
"After that I couldn't get the most accepted basic support like needed room supplies, memos about meetings, campus police help when any of my kids needed to be removed for violence or assistance for students hurting themselves regularly," Cooper-Dowda alleged. "Finally, I was given less than a day to hand deliver a resignation for 'personal reasons' or be fired for 'not fitting in.'"
Ron Stone, associate superintendent for human resources and public affairs for Pinellas County Schools, told CNSNews.com that Cooper-Dowda has no recourse other than Tuesday night's scheduled appeal to the board.
"She is a probationary employee and under Florida law all teachers are hired under a 97-day probationary contract as at-will employees and at any point during that 97-day period, the principal can make a recommendation to discontinue the probation," Stone explained. "Essentially, that's what's happened here, and we don't have to have reasons for that."
Cooper-Dowda believes that her termination is being expedited to make sure that it is completed before her probation expires, but she has been in contact with several public interest law firms who say that the appeals process will move her past the probationary period and make her eligible for the protections afforded to regular staff teachers.
The Pinellas County School Board meeting, at which Cooper-Dowda is to be fired, will be telecast live on the local cable system. Because of the abbreviated holiday programming schedule, it's expected that the meeting will be replayed several times over the next four to six weeks.
"They threatened me with this. They said, 'If you don't resign for personal reasons, you're gonna get fired over and over and over' because the school board meeting runs on TV through the December holidays when everyone turns to them for the student concerts," Cooper-Dowda alleged. "They thought I would go, 'Oh, geez, I'd better resign.'
"Instead, I went, 'If Terri's supporters talk, their witness is going to run over and over and over through December," Cooper-Dowda said cheerfully. "There's a reason this is happening to me."
Cooper-Dowda hopes the public and media focus will quickly shift from her story to Terri's plight, but she acknowledges that the altercation with Pinellas County school officials has changed her life forever.
"I'm going to be so sad. I've wanted to be a public school teacher since I was five and I finally got in, in August. It took me 43 years to get here," Cooper-Dowda said. "I probably will not teach again."
E-mail a news tip to Jeff Johnson.
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You failed to address the irony I presented, sport. It should have been as clear as a fly on your nose.
Corruption is as corruption does. The sex of the beast matters not. Where is the heart of the attack on our national heritage? It's coming from whacked out hate filled women organizations hell-bent on destroying the primary pillar supporting our country - the family.
The Schindler family is a prime example. So much is dependent upon the 'system' defeating them. They represent the characteristics government isn't capable of duplicating. Control of all that takes place within the family ( religion, history, national heritage, language and culture ) is viewed as a threat until it is finally controlled by government - contrary to scripture and the Fourth of His Ten Commandments.
Back when men were pressured to pass the Fourteenth Amendment - the so-called 'suffrage' argument held that women - unlike men - were above the fray; that by the nature of the unique characteristics of their sex alone, women would bring to the table a gift men, who by virtue of an incomplete DNA could not hope to appreciate.
It was inferred that the previous 150 years of governance was immeasurably flawed. Men were, in any case, little more than well groomed Neanderthals - beasts having a limited genetic structure relegating the use of power to that of crushing any real or perceived threat with any weapon at their disposal.
But alas, comes now the Pinellas County School Board - a public body totally controlled by women - smashing the myth prolonged in the extremist argument that women are the illustrious retainers of an embedded refinement of knowingness. For here in the seat of public power controlled in total by women we have found an exhibition of cruelty greater in scope and intent than any male dominated public body of like kind.
For one and all to take notice, this coven of authority decided to publicly slice and dice two women in one act of depravity.
One victim is their psychological slave. She's in a 'probationary' teacher status. Termination need not be explained during this time. They own her. Completely, it would seem.
Lo, this lowly wretch dared challenge the powerful of Florida through her Creator derived freedom of speech. She wasn't informed that her Creator derived freedoms were suspended when she became a 'probationary' teacher; that would have taken away from the push/pull mind play perfected by those embedded with a refined knowingness.
Every single seat of power in Florida the Schindler family has had to face is controlled by men. Perhaps this school teacher thought there might be some protection through the overwhelming 6/7 domination of women on her school board. Better yet, perhaps she was raised with the knowledge of her Creator given freedoms; that her duty as a Citizen demanded she rise and give notice and alarm of oppressive government dictates to the Citizens of Florida. Perhaps it was her belief that so informed, Citizens would stand and do their duty to right a grievous, and physically torturous wrong inflicted on a defenseless woman. A woman who has done no wrong; yet the 'system' placed her in a in a setting where she's been stripped of her freedoms and is in a lock-down designed to generate the worst of psychological traumas conceived by evil mind of man.
Did this school teacher have a duty to stand, and as the town crier of old, inform her fellow Citizens of this great wrong? She met her obligation as a Citizen, and for this she is suffering the status of persona non grata' within the profession she sought as a career goal.
How then have these women of power proven themselves worthy of the argument put forth in support of the passage of the 14th Amendment? Has their two handed iron fisted attack on two women exceeded the ruthlessness of that exhibited by like men? Has there been an abandonment of the lie of the 14th, revealing a face so hideous it would by comparison make Dorian Gray handsome?
Why have these six women abandoned even the slightest pretense of the argument made to gain passage of what has become America's greatest threat - the 14th Amendment?
Are women in reality merely knuckle dragging make-overs using Victoria's Secret weapons to seize power? Will their tactics successfully seize total control of the club from the hand of mankind?
Men of power created the 'system' that is intent on murdering Terri Schiavo Schindler. Doesn't rescuing her from the clutches of a man made torture enhance the argument for even greater control of power for women? Why have those with a refined knowingness overlooked this fundamental strategy?
As a public body, these women chose not to rise on behalf of a woman who has been persecuted by her husband and every single male dominated seat of power in the State of Death 'r Us.
It is women who are putting the screws to two of their own. They're cutting the throat of the one who can speak in defense of the one who can not.
In retrospect, the 14th Amendment seems to have merely expanded the number of degenerates who may sit at the table of power, with the newest members taking from their caldron all manner of deceit to achieve undisputed control equal to that exhibited by the Pinellas County School Board.
Well, seeing as it was founded by commies, we can't expect it to be for truth, justice and the American way. It's just another way to subvert our country to the commie way.
The experiment of sharing power equally with women has been shown to merely display the same corrupted features common to men who thirst for the key to this intangible treasure trove.
Men and women seeking power share a common fault - arrogance - along with fear of any authority/structure independent of their social domination.
In a very real sense we are at a greater risk having approved the 14th Amendment, as we have more than doubled the potential for the overthrow of our bedrock social institutions responsible for the building the most successful nation on earth. A nation which recognizes the Creator's sacred relationship with it's Citizens. Not another nation on Earth respects its citizens in a like fashion.
Paul was a bounty hunter of Christians in his day. Imagine how wired the internet would have been had it existed at that time. Paul's witnessing would have been doubted - likely rejected by otherwise good Christians. Do you suppose The Savior had a lesson for us in his befriending the sinners of His day. Some say Mary Magdalene was known to many men of her day, yet she was permitted the incredible honor of washing His feet. Should He forgive your transgressions, if you are unable to forgive others for their misdeeds?
Consider this the next time you decide to stone someone for the sins of their past.
Many people here are avid public supporters of Terri Schavo. To remain credible, they should not voice public support for a con artist.
Is it possible for yesterday's sinner to be today's saint?
If it is learned she wasn't interviewed; that the onus of the label 'probationary' does not allow an employer to capriciously terminate an employee without detailing the reason(s) for the termination; that school administrator back-stabbing did not create a shut-down of normal communication between Ms. Cooper-Dowda and the school staff ; that Ms. Cooper-Dowda's media comments did not shame the backsliding Christians of Pinellas County for failing to recognize and stand against the barbarism being played out in their own county - as she rightly did - then you are right.
HOWEVER, the story doesn't carry Ms. Cooper-Dowda's byline, and last I heard a reporter verifies facts before a news story is written.
I wrote to you about two saintly examples of sinner repentance. You respond that my reliance upon the facts presented in the story is inappropriate - because you infer the past governs the present; that the actions of Ms. Cooper-Dowda should be suspect, because her past is wrought with devious activities, say you. You choose to support the unforgiving glass house argument 'once a liar, always a liar' .
I fear you will one day sit on a jury, and bigotry - not facts - will dominate the panel's decision process .
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