Empty classroom
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An Italian teacher was fired after a legal battle over her prolonged absences, the BBC reported.
Cinzia Paolina De Lio did not come to work for 20 out of the 24 years she was a teacher.
The educator said she would challenge a court ruling that said she exhibited “absolute ineptitude.”
A teacher in Italy may have taken “quiet quitting” to a new extreme after she failed to show up to work for a couple of decades.
The educator avoided going to work for 20 out of the 24 years she was employed, according to reports, was officially fired after a court decision last week.
Cinzia Paolina De Lio was let go in from the school in 2017 after several complaints about her teaching style but was reinstated in 2018 after a ruling by a judge in Venice.
The Italian Supreme Court of Cassation reversed the decision earlier this week and called her prolonged absences at the school in — a seaside town near Venice — a “permanent and absolute ineptitude,” according to the BBC.
De Lio was unhappy with the ruling, saying she would “reconstruct the truth” with documents to prove her side of the story. She could not, however, expand on her defense, telling Italy’s Repubblica newspaper, “Sorry, but right now I’m at the beach,” per the BBC.
“I will reconstruct the truth of the facts of this absolutely unique and surreal story,” De Lio said.
“I don’t answer questions from journalists thrown around that wouldn’t do justice to the truth of my story,” she added.
For the first 10 years of her tenure, she was completely absent, per the BBC. Otherwise, the history and philosophy teacher used sick days, vacation time, and permits to attend conferences in order to avoid holding lessons, The Times reported.
During the scarce periods when she was teaching, she was distracted by her phone, borrowed textbooks from students — who seemingly received grades at random — and her lessons generally seemed improvised and “confused,” the court heard, per The Times.
The country’s education ministry later said it would “increasingly strive to ensure that the activity of teaching is carried out with adequate professionalism,” per the BBC.