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District teacher cleared to work

Once suicidal, Patti Withers will report to the district office for a new assignment.

By THOMAS LAKE
Published December 27, 2006

A teacher tried and failed to kill herself. The superintendent tried and failed to fire her. Now her doctors say she can return to work.

Patti Withers can't wait.

"I don't care if they set me to licking stamps and stuffing envelopes," she told the Times on Tuesday. "As long as I'm helping."

In her first interview since the suicide attempt that put school officials in an unusual debate over medicine and morality, Withers recalled the day she almost died.

She was 48, a language and reading teacher at Pasco High School in Dade City. Her medications were making it hard for her to concentrate. She had just failed the state Spanish certification exam for the fourth time.

She gave up May 22, three days before summer vacation. She came to school with $300 cash and a note for the principal telling him to spend it on a treat for the other teachers.

"I would have done this at home," she wrote, "but this was the one place I was ever truly happy."

Withers waited until the children left the portable classroom. She had bottles of Xanax, Valium and Atavan. And she began swallowing pills.

Here's what saved her: The classroom had no faucet or drinking fountain. She had a small bottle of water at her desk, but she'd drunk most of it earlier. When she ran out of water, she had to walk outside to look for more.

Other teachers noticed her odd behavior. Some students saw her as well. Someone called 911. Withers woke up four days later.

Then school superintendent Heather Fiorentino recommended her termination.

"As a teacher, you're a role model for children," she told the School Board, arguing that suicide can be contagious for adolescents. "And this is not what I want as an example."

The board suspended her without pay. A week later, they changed her suspension to paid. Two weeks after that, they put her on a leave of absence. But in November, after a quasijudicial hearing, the board voted 4-1 to keep her on the employee roster.

"I have always felt it was our job to help, not humiliate, our employees," outgoing member Jean Larkin Weightman said.

During that meeting, board member Marge Whaley made a motion requiring Withers' depression to be treated before she returned to the classroom.

The clearance letters arrived Thursday, Fiorentino said. By then, Withers' old job had been filled, so officials told her to report to the district office Jan. 8 to discuss other openings.

Withers, a teacher for 19 years, said her medication has been adjusted. She is exercising and attending therapy. She apologized for causing such trouble.

Whaley said she would be happy to have Withers teach her own granddaughter.

"Do I think that Patti is going to pull out a knife and slit her throat in front of people?" she said. "No, I do not. If that's what she was going to do, she would have done that."

Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245.

[Last modified December 27, 2006, 06:51:49]