[nfbmi-talk] christine boone in the news

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Former director of the Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center in Kalamazoo still hoping to get her job back

 

Published: Saturday, January 01, 2011, 6:00 AM

Chris Killian | Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette

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Chris Killian | Special to the Kalamazoo Gazette

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Chistine BooneFile photoChristine Boone, former director of the Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center.

NEWSMAKERS 2010

 

KALAMAZOO — Christine Boone has been a busy woman since being let go abruptly from her position as director of the Michigan Commission for the Blind Training

Center in Kalamazoo.

 

Boone, who was let go from the $96,000 job last February after authorizing a marksmanship class for students at the center, has been active in blind youth

summer camps, in-service workshops at schools where blind children attend to educate teachers on best practice approaches for those kids and helping her

husband expand his consulting firm.

 

Boone, 51, who is also an attorney, is blind.

 

She is set to have an arbitration hearing before the state’s Civil Service Commission on Jan. 12, and then three others on Jan. 19, 20 and 21 in an effort

to get her old job back.

 

“I’m not willing to predict the outcome,” Boone said. “Anything can happen. I am an optimist and a good and careful administrator. Things were going so

well at the center.”

 

The marksmanship class – which was thought-up by students at the center and signed-off by the Michigan State Police and Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety

– took place in a wooded ravine behind the center’s Oakland Drive facility from Sept. 2009 to Nov. 2009.

 

In the class, students fired spring-loaded pellet guns at foam targets, an activity that many of them said struck to the core of the mission Boone tried

to uphold after taking over as director of the center in 2006: empowering them to reach beyond their limits and realize their potential.

 

The marksmanship class, which was supervised, was “a great confidence builder for students,” Boone said. “If it (the class) had no value, why would I stake

my career on it?” she asked.

 

However, Michigan Commission for the Blind Director Patrick Cannon, who Boone said verbally signed-off on the marksmanship class in March 2009, fired Boone

on Feb. 4 for “a serious work-rule violation” and because he had lost faith in her judgment.

 

“I never thought this could happen to me,” Boone said, noting that there wasn’t a single disciplinary action in her professional file.

 

Sherri Heibeck, a 24-year veteran with the Michigan Commission for the Blind, won unanimous approval from a four-member interview panel to lead the center,

beating out 208 applicants seeking the position. She started at the center in June.

 

 

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/01/former_director_of_the_michiga.html