HOUSTON – A Houston lady says she was fired from HISD after taking too many days off to take care of her husband’s terminal most cancers analysis.
It’s been a difficult 12 months for Consepcion Zapata, after shedding her mother and husband of 42 years, simply months of one another.
To pile on to her grief, Zapata discovered this previous Tuesday that she would now additionally lose her job.
Zapata had labored as a custodian at HISD’s Heights Excessive Faculty for the final 15 years.
“I misplaced my mother in March and my husband in September of this 12 months. She had a stroke and my husband, he had most cancers,” Zapata mentioned.
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Zapata mentioned she took about 20 days off in September when her husband was hospitalized.
Two weeks later, her husband handed away.
“I used to be his spouse. I needed to be there to signal papers and all the pieces,” Zapata mentioned.
Zapata says she returned to work the next Monday after her husband’s funeral.
Two months later, Zapata was fired.
This previous Tuesday, she was known as to a gathering with two HISD custodial managers who knowledgeable her she violated the district’s high-absenteeism coverage when she took greater than 15 days off.
In consequence, Zapata was getting fired simply weeks shy of Christmas, and only a 12 months shy of her retirement.
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“I by no means miss work. I am all the time there. So, I feel it’s not honest what they’re doing to me,” Zapata mentioned.
Zapata mentioned she had accrued greater than 400 hours of day without work due to her tenure.
She says her supervisor had accepted her off-day requests.
Zapata introduced her daughter, Denise, along with her to the assembly to assist translate. “They began saying, I do know that is improper,” Denise mentioned.
“I made a decision to report (the assembly) as a result of I knew she had achieved nothing improper. She was on the hospital. She had requested these days off as they requested, and so they had been accepted,” Denise continued.
In a mobile phone recording of the assembly, an HISD official will be heard saying, “I am no completely different than you. If God forbid one thing occurred to me and also you and I needed to take the times, I might be the one sitting within the chair, and so they’d be doing it to me.”
A day earlier than, HISD’s Chief Human Useful resource Officer Jessica Neyman spent 40 minutes answering FOX 26’s questions concerning the district’s absence coverage.
On report, Neyman mentioned, “We truly lawfully may interact in quick termination of at-will staff, which incorporates the worker cohorts that you simply talked about, reminiscent of bus drivers and vitamin service employees, and a myriad of help employees on campuses. We select to not,” Neyman mentioned.
The household says they’re now within the strategy of submitting an attraction and hiring an legal professional.
FOX 26 reached out to HISD for an up to date response. As of early night Thursday, we’ve got not heard again.
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