After seven hours of witness testimony and three hours in executive session, the Weatherford Board of Education unanimously voted, 5-0, to terminate speech Pathologist Jennifer Daniel — during the hearing attorney Jonathan Irwin said if she is terminated she plans to sue.
“Mrs. Daniel has protections under the Americans with disabilities act and the rehabilitation act if the board votes for the termination, Mrs. Daniel fully intends to vindicate her rights under those acts and bring a claim for disability discrimination and failure to accomodate,” Irwin said.
Nearly 50 people were in attendance and 700 were watching live on the Weatherford Daily News Facebook page.
The following of this incident is even more impressive when compared with the turnout for local elections. In 2009 only 400 people voted in a Weatherford election yet nearly double that amount of people were watching the hearing live on WDN’s Facebook page.
During the hearing, Daniel testified she had two parts to her job, the speech therapy side and the administration side which required Daniel to turn in documentation and keep record of her students. Daniel testified she was not fulfilling her administration side of the job,but she claims it was because of her disabilities and her many work duties.
Through several witness testimonies, including Superintendent Jill Henderson and Assistant Superintendent Steve Callen, it was made clear Daniel was not fulfilling all of her job duties. Although several witnesses and evidence showed she performed well at the speech therapy side of her job, Henderson and Callen said she was given multiple opportunities to turn in paperwork and fulfill her administrative job duties.
“I make a motion to terminate Mrs. Jennifer Daniel from employment with Weatherford Public Schools based upon the findings of facts and conclusions of documents,” board member Dennis Green said during the hearing.
In a follow up interview with Jennifer Daniel’s husband Kenneth Daniel, he said the family still has not decided whether or not to file a law suit against Weatherford Public Schools.
“We don’t know what we are going to at this time. We are overwhelmed with what happened. This is not what we expected. We are trying to figure out what to do day-to-day. We don’t have any idea what our options are, but it seems like we have a lot of options,” Kenneth Daniel said.