[nfbmi-talk] Look what I found on the Kalamazoo Gazette Website!

[trising at sbcglobal.net]

Blind school update: Michigan Department of Labor has 'begun reinstatement process'
Published: Friday, May 27, 2011, 3:56 PM     Updated: Friday, May 27, 2011, 7:32 PM
 By Rosemary Parker | Kalamazoo Gazette MLive.com 
KALAMAZOO - The reinstatement process has begun.
The former director of the Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center in Kalamazoo, fired in February, 2010 in a dispute about a marksmanship class offered to students, said she is "breathless" at the thought that she will be reinstated to her former position.

Friday afternoon Mario Morrow, director of communications for the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth, which oversees the training center, said via e-mail that "the department has read the order and has begun the process of reinstatement."

An arbitration hearing on Boone's dismissal was held in January; earlier this week the decision by the hearing officer was announced that Christine Boone should get her job back, with back pay and benefits. The state initially had not commented about that finding.

"I'm breathless. This is news to me," Boone said in response to the news.

"I am thrilled and delighted. I'm just so ready to get back to making Michigan a much better place for blind people to live and work than it is today."

Boone was fired after the director of the Michigan Commission for the Blind in Lansing became upset to learn of a marksmanship class being offered at the school, a year-round training facility for blind adults.

In the class, blind students used spring-powered pellet guns to shoot at targets.



Related stories
Arbitrator rules Boone should get her job back. (May 25, 2011)

Marksmanship class leads to director's dismissal (Feb. 21, 2010)
  


Boone said she was given verbal consent to offer the class; her boss, Patrick Cannon, denied that, and said the class violated state safety and firearms rules.

At the arbitration hearing, the record shows, Cannon argued Boone had deceived him, intending to use the class to embarrass him.

"I spoke with my lawyer yesterday, I am going to want to have some conversation to make sure we are all on the same page," Boone said Friday. "I want to be sure that Mr. Cannon understands there was never any deception or attempt at such so that I'll be able to do the job, to make a difference.

Although she hasn't yet hear details of the "process of reinstatement," Boone said she would begin to clear her calendar of commitments she made during her 15 months of unemployment, and hopes to be back at work within a few weeks.


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