Institutional Abuse at Veritas Academy – Part 3

With thanks to Rebecca Ashbach for the AI art.

Read Part 2 here.

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I had been employed by Veritas Academy for exactly two weeks. I had turned my life upside down to scramble to complete background checks, find childcare for my children, begin creating brand new course materials from scratch, research textbooks, attend meetings, and purchase a new professional wardrobe (I had been out of the workforce for years, busily raising my babies). My summer garden had rotted from neglect; I’d had no time to tend it, and I lost nearly the entire harvest. The stress of cross-examining emails and interrogations leading up to my firing ate away at me, and by the time I was dismissed, I was all too glad to go.

Ty Fischer’s phone call on August 10–an apologetic, “we should have figured this out before we hired you” concession and an expression of the desire to protect me from any further aggressive inquiries by concerned parents–was followed by an official letter of dismissal on August 11. Except, there was something strange about the letter:

Ty wrote that he needed to “rescind the offer,” as though I had never accepted it.

But I had.

Weeks before.

I had a contract on the books.

Ty couldn’t even tell the truth about what had happened: that he had employed me, and that now he was terminating my contract.

This, on top of grossly misrepresenting my issues with Douglas Wilson (Ride, Sally, Ride is representative of perhaps 5% of my concerns) or how I have handled myself publicly in addressing them.

This, on top of saying, basically, “I get that you have understandable reasons for practicing your personal faith the way you do, but people here don’t want to be exposed to your experience on the subject, even simply via an article you wrote that they would never have a need to read; and it’s more important to me to keep them happy than it is to stick up for my employee’s right to express her private beliefs outside of the workplace however she sees fit.”

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I took weeks to gather myself, to try and recover from sustaining yet another massive blow of institutional abuse and religious trauma. This had been far from my first, and I knew I would need a lot of time to heal.

In the meantime, I waited to receive the one paycheck I was entitled to. That, at least, I figured, was something. Not every shred of the month of applying/interviewing/hiring/working had been wasted, paltry though the pay would be.

Maybe it would help pay for some professionals to come and rehabilitate my wasted garden, at least.

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The check never came.

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Read Part 4 here–in which Veritas Academy withholds my compensation.