A teacher has faked an illness, telling her bosses that she and her father were both dying of a terminal illness so she could avoid school.
The teacher, Ashley Barker, was a first grade teacher at Laurel Elementary School in Polk County, Florida. She is said to have made up the extravagant story, and kept up the lie for an entire year before her bosses found out.
Barker used the story to request numerous days off throughout the year, and also leave early many times. School officials had reportedly just taken her word for her illness and had not requested any kind of documentation evidence.
The school district has not revealed how many days Barker managed to take off as part of the lie, according to The Daily Mail.
Barker is now in the process of being dismissed and has been given a termination letter, according to WFTV.
However, it has also amazingly been claimed that Barker wrote a massive 120 letters to the principal of the school detailing her and her father's illness throughout the year to ensure the lie was kept up.
School officials eventually caught wind that the entire story had been a lie and confronted the teacher about the façade. As soon as they questioned her about the truthfulness of her story she admitted that she had not been to any hospital visits nor doctor appointments, but had simply been at home with nothing medically wrong with her.
The school feels it is within its right to terminate her employment, however, Barker has since hired an attorney and is fighting her dismissal. A formal hearing before a judge is expected to take place in the near future regarding the legality of dismissing her.
