September 2015 update: This website is no longer online.
When I was a first-grader I had a fabulous teacher. I owe my love of reading to that lady, because she taught me how.
Toward the end of the school year, she made an announcement that disappointed the whole class. She said that she wasn’t coming back in the fall because she was going to have a baby. Mind you, we weren’t sad about the baby news, but we were sad to not be able to see her in school come fall.
That’s just how things were back then. If you were expecting, you had to quit your teaching job.
The woman who won the right for teachers to continue to work while pregnant will be honored at a June luncheon that’s being organized by the Veteran Feminists of America. I just finished the initial design of the event website, which you can visit by clicking on the screenshot below…
An update on my first grade teacher: A few years after her resignation, she went back to teaching. And there she remained until retirement.
According to my mother (who also was a teacher), my first grade teacher didn’t get any pension coverage for the years before her resignation. An it wasn’t like she wasn’t working during that time — I can personally attest to that.