This is what fragile teachers without protection have to endure
Is it normal that fragile teachers, having exhausted their smart working but not their contractual leave, are sent to be checked by the provincial verification commissions? I really do not think so. The letter from Francesco Provinciali, former MIUR and Ministry of Education inspection manager
Now that smart working has been removed from the protection of fragile working teachers, some conclusions can be drawn on a tormented affair that remains one of the most shameful pages in republican history.
Agile working pre-existed the legislation introduced by the first Conte Government and gradually renewed in fits and starts, late, with limitations (only private individuals, not public ones until the Zangrillo Directive of 12/29/2023 which intended to remedy a unequal treatment of a constitutional nature). Applied in all Ministries except that of Education and Merit, but limited to teaching staff: there was no money to pay substitutes, yet I know that there are administrative managers who do smart working even now, with contracts ad personam. I also know of someone who wrote to Minister Valditara and President Mattarella without receiving a response.
– I was saying – law 81/2017 pre-existed which stated that the Headmaster "can" organize flexible methods of working and staff training: someone asked to apply it but was told "can" but not "must": a great proof of understanding and humanity towards patients whose pathologies were then certified "fragile" by the Health Ministerial Decree of 4/2/2022.
In the midst of the pandemic emergency, the teachers were subjected to checks – also at their request – by the "competent doctor" of the institute: those who were assessed as suitable to resume teaching activities, those who were placed on an illness equivalent to hospital admission, with a nosological code V07, those who are temporarily unfit and diverted to smart working. Controls carried out several times in the emergency phase and subsequently: agile work organization situations that strictly respect and apply current legislation.
I know of a teacher from whom the manager asked twice for the certificate indicating the diagnosis, not trusting what the competent doctor or – upon his indication – the general practitioner or the specialist had certified. A criminal offense to be reported to the Privacy Guarantor and the AG: something not done in obedience to the request received. In the multiplicity of situations that have occurred in the area, I have found – following the story of the vulnerable with dozens and dozens of published articles – different application methods: generally the school managers – objectively in difficulty due to constantly evolving legislation – have demonstrated great common sense and understanding towards situations of real criticality and application difficulty: we are talking about teachers with tumors, suffering from immunodepressive pathologies that overexposed them to contagion, from rheumatoid arthritis. The list of fragile pathologies can be found as written in the Ministerial Decree "Speranza" of 4/2/2022.
Some felt more like principal, sheriff or captain of the ship as the pro-tempore Ministers of IP had defined them: inappropriate language which made someone feel so authoritarian as to forget that the legislation which regulated (and still regulates, regardless) the matter of fragility had as its main purpose the "protection" of workers – despite themselves being ill. Like the case of that teacher who in three months of smart working (sometimes granted with resistance, as if it were a gift) downloaded 200 training course certificates, which she had to present to the institute secretariat every week, spending whole days on the computer despite had represented to the competent doctor the disarticulation of the fingers of one hand: nothing to be done, the Manager did not allow self-training or reading of books with subsequent reports: despite the fact that Minister Valditara at the Einaudi Foundation Conference in July 2023 had recommended the mix of digital training and of that bookshop. A choice of et-et, he had defined it, not of either/or.
Having worked as an inspector for over 20 years, I don't remember any cases of Guinness World Record-worthy Stakhanovism being reported to me: I don't think anyone has achieved 200 certificates in their entire career. It should be added that this method of organizing smart working for teachers had totally and casually disregarded art. 8 of Legislative Decree 29/9/2023 n. more flexible and useful to the school itself. I wonder what advantage that teacher gained from tinkering with the keyboard 'every day' and from taking courses with different topics, on average 5 per day.
Now that this stage of traditional and digital Italian bureaucracy has closed its doors, it comes naturally to me to ask the Ministers for Disabilities who have taken turns in the last three to four years what type of interventions they have implemented to guarantee constitutional protection for sick workers. The school shines for its plurality of disparate and desperate situations. Now that the curtain falls – in cauda venenum – some pearls emerge that link the sequence of three painful and, for some, humiliating years.
There is news of fragile teachers who – having exhausted their smart working but not their contractual leave – are sent to be checked by the provincial verification commissions. As if enduring the misfortune of a serious illness were a fault to be accounted for, as if the three, four, five certificates from the competent doctor gradually collected along the way were waste paper. And here comes a further aspect of critical evaluation.
Until a year ago, the professional suitability verification commissions were based at the territorial offices of the MEF. It turns out – if I'm not mistaken – that the subject subjected to the examination was examined and evaluated, together with the documentation he presented – by a full medical board. While it appears that now that the evaluation responsibility has passed to the decentralized offices of the INPS, the subject is evaluated by a "monocratic" doctor who only later brings together a commission to which he reports the outcome of the visit. Then this Commission which also includes a representative of the Ministry of Education and Merit (MIM) takes the case into consideration and decides. Knowing one of these members of the MIM I had confirmation of this "deferred" evaluation of the case. Now I believe that a Commission that visits "ictu oculi" and "de visu" could be defined as collegial, i.e. in the presence of the person whose suitability or non-suitability for the job ordinarily carried out is being assessed.
I humbly express this opinion: the evaluation of the case is adequate if all the members of the Commission are present and express their opinions, also collecting the deductions of those called to visit. “Tres faciunt collegium” teaches us handed down and consolidated jurisprudence and this applies not only to the drafting of a report but also and above all to the medical examination, which alone can offer all the elements of evaluation to the members of the verification commission. A "collective medical visit" could be defined as one which takes place later than the visit of a single doctor and which is decided on the basis of the report of the monocratic evaluator, also "per tabulas", i.e. by looking at the paper but without seeing in person, knowing and evaluate the subject on which a decision must be made "in science and conscience" that can affect one's future career, up to and including dismissal? I would definitely say not.
This seems to me to be an observation that is neither far-fetched nor specious since in my opinion there are grounds for challenging in any venue a report drawn up "posthumously" after the visit and signed by commissioners not present at the visit itself. I would like to humbly highlight the opportunity for a reflection, to the Government and the Presidency of INPS. I would add that in my opinion it makes no sense to subject a "certified fragile" person to a verification visit. There are immunosuppressed and transplanted teachers who, with adequate care, carry out their work with dignity and effectiveness. Can a fragile person be declared unfit due to their pathology, perhaps disregarding the diagnoses-prognoses of the NHS structures that treat them? I really do not think so.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/ecco-a-cosa-devono-sottostare-i-docenti-fragili-senza-tutele/ on Mon, 15 Apr 2024 08:41:16 +0000.