Teacher who avoided school for 20 years vows to 'tell her unique, surreal story' after being fired
28 June 2023, 15:57
A teacher who was fired after skipping class for 20 years has vowed to tell her side of the story.
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Cinzia Paolina De Lio, a teacher at a school in Chioggia, near Venice, was sacked recently after showing up for just four years out of 24 in the job.
When contacted by reporters for comment, Ms De Lio said could not speak in detail because she was at the beach.
She said: "I will reconstruct the truth of the facts of this absolutely unique and surreal story", adding: "I don't answer questions from journalists thrown around that wouldn't do justice to the truth of my story."
Ms De Lio, a philosophy and literature teacher at Veronese high school, used sick leave and holiday time to get out of lessons, and went to conferences to avoid more work.
She was first fired in 2017, before being reinstated on appeal the next year.
But a judge reversed the ruling after learning that she had only been at the school for four years out of twenty.
Italy's supreme court had to confirm the decision.
When Ms De Lio was at work, she ignored her students, sent text messages, made up lessons as she went and had to borrow textbooks from pupils because she had forgotten her own.
But she wasn't twiddling her thumbs during her time away from the classroom: she managed to get qualifications in pet therapy and criminology, Italian media reported.
Her pupils went on strike after she was caught messaging during oral exams and handed out grades that didn't correspond to children's actual performance.
In one of her rare appearances at school, a visiting inspector raised the alarm after spotting that she looked confused and was making up her lessons as she went along.
Read more: 'Ooh la la!' France is mired in 'laziness epidemic', study shows
Ms De Lio is not the only Italian worker to go missing from her job in recent years.
A member of staff at a hospital in the southern city of Catanzaro was accused in 2021 of stopping showing up to work in 2005.
Local media reported that he was paid about £464,000 in total over the 16 years he was accused of not working.
