Tartan Teachers Question District 622's Decision to Deny Leave to Teach Overseas

For more than a year, teachers Dan and Sheryl Krengel have been making plans to take a leave of absence to teach overseas, as they did from 2004 to 2006, Dan Krengel said.

And with letters of recommendation from their principal and the district superintendent for a program in Beijing—it never occurred to the husband-and-wife educators that their request for a leave of absence might not be granted, Dan Krengel said.

But in early February, about a week after they sent their request for leave, they received an e-mail from the District 622 Human Resources Department saying it had been denied, said Dan Krengel, a speech teacher.

Since then, the Krengels have appealed to Human Resources Director Keith Gray, Superintendent Patty Phillips and some individual school board members in addition to using a union process called meet and confer where union leadership meets with administration on a member’s behalf—all to no avail, Dan Krengel said.

As a “last ditch” effort, Dan Krengel spoke at the Feb. 15 School Board Meeting, making the argument that at a time when the district is looking at serious budget cuts, why not let two seasoned teachers—Dan has been at Tartan 20 years, and Sheryl 13—take leave for a few years to make room for newer teachers whose salaries cost the district much less.

“I think it’s reasonable to think we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars,” in savings, Dan Krengel said in an interview.

On Monday, about a week after his speech, he said he’d received no response from his statements other than an e-mail from one School Board member thanking him for speaking.

Superintendent Phillips, who was out of town for the Feb. 15 meeting, said she didn't realize that the Krengels would be requesting leave when she wrote the letter of recommendation for Sheryl Krengel—Tartan’s business internship coordinator and Business Professionals of America advisor. Phillips assumed Krengel was applying for an exchange program where she would switch jobs with a teacher from another country for a year, She said.

Phillips said she’s been consistent during her six years on the job about denying requests for five-year leaves because the district’s principals group has said they cause issues with retraining and staff replacement. The denial is no negative reflection on the Krengels, she said.

“They’re both excellent teachers,” she said.

Dan Krengel argues that if allowed to take the leave, they’ll bring back a breadth of experience and new teaching techniques to District 622 classrooms.

The Krengels’ first overseas experience was teaching in an international school in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, attended by children of foreign businesspeople, Uzbek government officials and others, he said.

The school paid for his training in International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement systems, he said.

“I brought back amazing numbers of tricks about how to teach—techniques and tools that I hadn’t been exposed to before that are used in other systems,” he said.

The teachers also brought back items from in and around Uzbekistan that they show to their Tartan classes, he said.

“We did amazing traveling over there and all of those experiences, we bring back to the classroom to teach kids about the world, because the world is bigger than Oakdale,” he said. “If they’ve got a teacher who wants to go overseas, they should be jumping at that, because all of those skills, that teacher can bring back to the classroom.”

The couple is “heartbroken” about having to consider turning down the Beijing offer, but Dan Krengel said without a leave of absence, they’d be giving up a significant amount of retirement money, along with his opportunity to retire in nine years.

“It’s amazing the amount of money we’d be throwing away in retirement,” Dan Krengel said. “I don’t know how we can possibly afford to do it.”

He said they have been waiting to give the Beijing school an answer about whether they can accept the positions, but they won’t be able to wait much longer.

"We’re on a real tight timeline, and if we don’t hear something from our school district here fairly quickly," he said, "it seems like we’re going to have to tell Beijing 'thank you very much,'" and decline their offer.