UDP Mayoral Candidate Denied Leave From Teaching

UDP’s aspiring Mayor for Belmopan, Jackie Burns, is hopeful that the rejection from the Teachers’ Services Commission for leave without pay is not politically motivated.  Burns is running for the mayoral seat in the capital, and had applied for leave without pay as she is a teacher at the Belmopan Comprehensive School.  She received her rejection letter today, and gave an interview on the situation.

Jacqueline Burns, UDP Mayoral Aspirant: “I got my response finally today and in receiving my response today it was that the leave was denied and what they cited as the reasoning behind the leave being denied is regulation 85 of the 2012 amendment to the education law which says that a person can be granted leave without pay under letter C as someone who is elected or appointed to a full time post however letter F in that very same education law says that any other reason, any other special reason approved by the commission and in the instances of the two prior cases that’s what they had used, letter F to grant the leave for those individuals who had taken campaign leave. This is nothing out of the ordinary, it has happened in many instances before. I’m sure not only two and it’s one of the things that when the education attorney came to our school you know he talked to us about the various leaves and he also mentioned that that is one possibility that you can get leave for the leave without pay. That’s the case today and so when I received the response I decided that I would appeal the decision of the Teaching Services Commission and so I’m in the process of sending a letter which labels why I’m appealing.”

Burns has since appealed the decision.  We will update you accordingly.