Teacher Says She Contracted Hepatitis C at Queens School
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Special education teacher Lori Baron said she believes she contracted hepatitis C while caring for emotionally disturbed children at Beach Channel High School in Queens.
In a news conference in front the Department of Education headquarters yesterday, the 11-year teaching veteran joined the United Federation of Teachers in demanding the city step up efforts to protect teachers from unsafe conditions.
“Educators are being exposed to highly contagious, life-threatening diseases like hepatitis C, and they are not being adequately trained,” the union’s president, Randi Weingarten, charged yesterday. She said classrooms are not adequately equipped with latex gloves and plastic aprons to protect teachers from contracting diseases.
The Education Department is facing numerous complaints about working conditions for special education teachers and the state Labor Department has hit it with about $50,000 in fines.
The union filed a complaint with the Public Employee Safety and Health Administration last year, charging that special education staffers at P.S. 233 at Beach Channel High School were being exposed to harmful conditions. The state ruled in the union’s favor and in a follow-up visit months later found that the school had not complied. It is currently being fined about $1,280 a day.
The Education Department is appealing the citation, which it said is without merit. Ms. Baron said she was working with two students in 1996 who self-mutilated and that she received no special training in dealing with them. On at least two occasions, she was scratched and bitten while trying to stop the students from hurting themselves.
She was diagnosed with hepatitis C two years ago and was forced to take off about five months to undergo grueling treatment, during which she was unpaid. She has now hired lawyers to help recuperate workers’ compensation pay.
The executive director for labor policy at the Education Department, Dan Weisberg, said the city now provides protective clothing and recently hired safety and health consultants to expand training.
