Rense.com



Teacher Fired For Supporting
Terri On Own Time

From Dee Rohe
drrohe@bellsouth.net
12-7-3


The former PVS patient who was almost killed, but later recovered, Rus Cooper-Dowda, is being FIRED for speaking favorably of Terri outside of a work setting, and on her own time!
 
For her background, see Rus Cooper-Douda's astonishing article, "When I Woke Up" www.rense.com/general44/woke.htm
 
Old horned Hemlock strikes again. What a slithering snake. We are lighting our candles not just for Terri, but for Rus and others in danger.
 
Dee Rohe
__________
 
Email from Rus Cooper-Dowda
 
I am a Pinellas County, Florida exceptional education teacher with disabilities. I teach middle school students with learning, emotional and behavioral disabilities.
 
I am in my 26th year as a teacher.
 
On the day Terri Schindler-Schiavo's feeding tube was removed this fall, I did a brief interview about the disabled community's take on her possible death for being cognitively-impaired.
 
It was very brief and done off school grounds on my own time. The reporter agreed not to mention in any way that I taught.
 
I said basically that as a Florida woman with disabilities Terri's starving was very scary.
 
The next day administration who had never talked to me before made it clear that I no longer fit in.
 
Then the book I wrote "When I Woke Up..." which included my own Terri-like time in the 1980s, my coverage of her October 2002 hearing and a meditation I delivered as minister at a Terri vigil hit my school campus.
 
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.
 
Finally, I was given less than a day to hand deliver a resignation for personal reasons or be fired for "not fitting in." At the time I was home recovering from a student attack that could have been prevented if I had only the support other teachers had.
 
I physically could not get the letter in. I would not have resigned anyway.
 
How can a 26 year veteran teacher with disabilities "not fit in" with students who have disabilities?
 
In an effort to force me to resign I was threatened with being fired on tv over and over through December and into January. The administrator was threatening me with firing at the televised school board meeting that is rerun until the next meeting.
 
As a result -- on December 9th at 5 pm only 20 minutes from The hospice where Terri remains in danger, I am being fired for "not fitting in."
 
And indeed, I will be fired many, many times in reruns in between hours of new and old holiday student performances.
 
My contract specifically prohibits being fired for the reasons I am being fired.
 
So, there you go.
 
Rus Cooper-Dowda
uudre@aol.com
 
The teacher, "Rus Cooper-Dowda" is mentioned in a 11/6/03 news
article (linked below).
 
At one time she was in what doctors incorrectly decided was a
vegetative state and planned to remove her feeding tube too.
 
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-usschi023527678nov06,0,3738951.story?coll=ny-health-headlines
 
Disabled Rally Around Terri Schiavo
By Hugo Kugiya
STAFF WRITER
 
November 6, 2003
 
Unable to speak and barely able to move, Rus Cooper-Dowda could do little to prevent her death. Only 30, she had developed a serious form of lupus that had left her in what doctors incorrectly thought was a vegetative state.
 
She knew the doctors and nurses had all but given up on her because she could still hear. She said later that she listened to them describe her prognosis as hopeless.
 
They said that she would never live a normal life and that if she took a turn for the worse, no extraordinary measures should be attempted to save her life.
 
Contrary to their expectations, Cooper-Dowda, now 48, survived. Over the years, she recovered some use of her body, earned a graduate degree and gave birth to a son who recently entered college.
 
Doctors couldn't explain why her condition got so bad 18 years ago, nor why it improved so much, she said. Which is why she thinks Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged St. Petersburg, Fla., woman, should be helped, not left to die.
 
"People say she'll never fully recover," said Cooper-Dowda, a writer and teacher from Florida. "My feeling is, 'So what?' There is something between death and full recovery, and it's called living with a disability."
 
She is one of many disabled people who see Schiavo as a cause mirroring their own, even if their medical circumstances differ. (Cooper-Dowda was incapacitated for months, not 13 years like Schiavo.) Individually, they have spoken out. Last week, they took a collective stand.
 
"This is a real scary prospect for us, because there are lots of disabled people who can't communicate verbally," said Andy Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities.
 
Imparato and association board members, with the blessing of other disabled rights groups, released a written statement condemning the court's decision to allow Michael Schiavo to remove his wife's feeding tube. Such action should be confined, the statement said, "to those situations in which an individual's condition is terminal, death is imminent and any continuation or provision of treatment, nutrition and/or hydration would only serve to prolong dying ... "
 
"No one other than Ms. Schiavo, not even a guardian, has the right to make assumptions about the quality of her life," the statement continued.
 
While Schiavo's case has been seen largely as an issue of the sanctity of life versus personal choice, of conservative against liberal, of religious values against secular ones, the concerns of disabled people are more nuanced and personal and do not depend so much on politics or ideology.
 
"To us, it's more complex," Imparato said.
 
Although doctors disagree on her condition, a state court determined that Schiavo, 39, is in an irreversible and permanent vegetative state. After her husband received permission to remove her feeding tube, her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, harnessing the momentum of public outcry, convinced lawmakers and the governor to help. In less than 48 hours, the Legislature passed a bill giving Gov. Jeb Bush the authority to order the tube replaced, which he did Oct. 21.
 
Michael Schiavo is fighting the law in court, charging that it interfered with his wife's right to refuse medical treatment and that it violated the state constitution by passing a law that defied a court order.
 
While she was incapacitated, Cooper-Dowda tried to communicate by writing in the air with her finger. When she heard doctors discussing the removal of life support, she tried to spell the word "no." She even spelled it backward in hopes they would recognize it as a word. Doctors decided her movement was seizure activity and sedated her.
 
The more she moved, the more she was sedated. Finally, a nurse became curious and put ink on the end of Cooper-Dowda's finger, so she could write the letter Y or N, for yes and no.
 
"It's still terrifying how close I came to death," Cooper-Dowda said, "because of all the assumptions someone else made about the quality of my life. ... When someone says, 'I wouldn't want to live like that,' it's believing it will never happen to you. When it does, it's not a bad life or a useless life. It's a changed life."
 
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
 
___________________________________________
Contact the Pinellas County School Board:
 
Open to Public: Anyone can speak for 3 minutes by signing a speaker's slip
by 4:45 pm.
Signs without sticks are permitted.
Address: Pinellas County School Administration Building
Conference Hall
301 4th Street SW
Largo, Florida 33770
 
Televised live with reruns on WPDS
GTE Americast channel 14
Time Warner Channel 14
 
If you want to protest:
Board@pcsb.org
727-586-1818
Pinellas County School Board
301 4th St. SW
Largo, FL 33770
 
Members of the Pinellas County School Board:
Dr. J. Howard Hinesley
Superintendent
 
Jane Gallucci
Chair
 
Carol Cook
Vice-Chair
 
Board Member most likey to be unhappy about this:
Linda Lerner
 
Rest of Board:
Mary Russell
Nancy Bostock
Mary Brown
Lee Benjamin
 
 
We still have a lot to be thankful for! Let us hold an
attitude of gratitude and appreciation for all who are
working to save precious lives! - Including Terri's!
 
Terri's Links http://heavenlyhands.net/terrislinks.html
 

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