Teacher of the year fired in Svetlahorsk

District teacher of the year Alena Maslyukova has been fired. The headmistress has not prolonged her contract.

“The headmistress’s attitude to me suddenly changed after my victory at a distract contest for teachers. Colleagues started gathering around me creating a certain circle, she claimed. Children kept asking my opinion about the events in Ukraine. Maybe she heard something. She summoned me and said that people like me were to blame for Maidan in Ukraine. Officials like her were to blame for it, I replied,” the former teacher of history from Svetlahorsk school #10 described the conflict.

The conflict kept building up. Alena stood up for a young colleague. She wanted to protect her from the forced subscription for newspapers.

“The headmistress forced a young colleague to subscribe for the state press. I told her that there was no such a law. But it is only a trifle. She made me use all my compensatory leaves in summer. The secretary summoned me in July and said that I could be dismissed in connection with the expiration of my contract,” Alena continued.

It was only an intimidation attempt, Alena’s colleagues thought. However, the teacher’s contract was not prolonged and she became jobless after the line-up on September 1.

She used to work in an affiliate of Yakub Kolas Humanitarian Lyceum and spent 5 years working in Sveltahorsk school #10. Having won the contest, she was making 6 million roubles a month for a double teaching load.

“Schools are legal entities. It means that the employer, the headmistress, has the right to hire and dismiss teachers. She won a district contest. We can only hire the administrative staff,” the district department of education, sport and tourism replied.

Officials did not want to defend the teacher they had announced to be the best in the district. There are no vacancies for teachers of history at that school anymore:

“There are no vacancies for teachers of history and the headmistress is on a sick leave at the moment,” Svetlahorsk school #10 replied.

Photo: sn.by (Svetlahorsk News) Alena Maslyukovich at the contest Teacher of the Year.