A former Marengo County math teacher is suing her school district for $37,000 in back pay she says she’s owed after suffering an intestinal abscess that her doctor states is a result of three students poisoning her snacks with industrial chemicals during the 2022-23 school year.
In a lawsuit against the Marengo County Board of Education and former superintendent Luke Hallmark, Sherri Nettles claims school officials refused to declare hers an on-the-job injury, denying her pay and benefits and forcing her to use personal sick leave and unpaid leave.
Nettles, 54, has been unable to work since March 20, 2023, due to the results of the poisoning.
And at the end of the school year, the district let her go. Nettles had given up tenure after teaching 22 years of public school to be employed at Amelia L. Johnson school under a contract that would allow her to be paid a higher amount because she taught middle and high school math.
She told AL.com she is frustrated by the length of time it is taking for attorneys to resolve the lawsuit, filed Aug. 31, 2023. District and school officials did not respond to requests for comment and have not filed substantive responses to Nettles’ claims in court.
“Had they done what they were supposed to,” Nettles said, “I would have never had to file bankruptcy at the end of April.”
She is living with a relative after having her house foreclosed on and her car repossessed, she said.
Her daughter Kathryn, 24, took to TikTok earlier this month to ask for help for her mother. The video garnered more than 1,100 comments, some from other people claiming to be Alabama teachers saying they, too, had been injured at school.
Current state law allows teachers to be granted up to 90 days of paid leave after an on-the-job injury.
But Principal William Martin, according to Nettles, refused to sign forms to allow her claim to proceed.
Martin did not respond to questions from AL.com about why he did not declare her injuries were due to an on-the-job injury.
Alabama teachers do not have traditional worker’s compensation insurance, which would typically pay for any leave and medical bills necessary to recover from an on-the-job injury.
Instead, a teacher’s immediate supervisor – in this case the principal – must verify the injury happened on the job in order to file a claim with the state’s Board of Adjustment. The claim cannot be considered without the supervisor’s verification.
Education employees have to pay for injuries out of pocket and request a reimbursement from the Board of Adjustment. The board determines how much an employee receives; the process can be time consuming and still leave employees with unpaid bills.
The AEA, which has provided an attorney to represent Nettles in her lawsuit, sued the Board of Adjustment separately in 2022 claiming the Board is improperly denying teachers’ on-the-job injury claims. That lawsuit is still underway.
A bill to give teachers a worker’s compensation plan failed to pass during the most recent legislation. Sen. Sam Givhan, R-Huntsville, has prefiled a similar bill for lawmakers to consider in the 2025 session.
In November, Nettles also filed a federal EEOC complaint alleging the board discriminated and retaliated against her when they did not renew her teaching contract at the end of the 2022-23 school year. That complaint is still under review.
Nettles told AL.com, and wrote in a response in her EEOC case file, that three students were held accountable in juvenile court but were not disciplined at school for their actions. School officials did not respond to questions about the students’ discipline. Marengo County law enforcement officials did not respond to AL.com’s request for comment.
