Human Resources Director to Take a Sabbatical

The human resources director for the Chambersburg School District, Sylvia Rockwood, has announced that she has set up a sabbatical for the school year, which she is using to take time off of work and work on obtaining her master’s degree. The sabbatical will allow her to spend more of her free time working on what it takes to get a master’s degree. She will be taking her classes at the Villanova University in hopes of earning a Master’s Degree for Human Resources.

The Superintendent for the school district, Joe Padasak, says that the human resources director position is a huge and important job, especially since the human resources director works with the thousands of employees working within the school district. Rockwood has worked on different initiatives and whoever fills in for her will have to be able to follow up with her work. It is also expected that when Rockwood returns back from her sabbatical, her job will have changed, especially since human resources position change each year.

Rockwood currently earns $82,800 each year. However, while on sabbatical, she will only be paid half of her salary, which is a total of $41,400. In the meantime, Barry Purvis, who has worked as a high school principal, will fill in for Rockwood and will serve as the human resources director until she comes back for the school year of 2013-2014.

After obtaining her master’s degree, Rockwood has to stick with the district for at least three years; otherwise she will be forced to pay back the cost of the program she will be taking to help her with earning her master’s degree. Getting approval for her sabbatical actually did not go as easy as Rockwood had planned. Some board members questioned whether it was a good time for Rockwood to take a sabbatical, especially with everything going on and everything that she has been working on within her position.

Board members discussed the options, knowing that there was a possibility, for certain reasons, that Rockwood could be denied her request for a sabbatical. However, the board members of the negotiating team came to an agreement and determined that it would be best to allow Rockwood to take her sabbatical now. They agreed with one another that in her contract, it clearly states that she is allowed to take a sabbatical, especially for the purpose of obtaining a master’s degree. The negotiating team believed that she had the right, based on her contract, to take the sabbatical I necessary which is why they ultimately chose to approve the request. There was truly no reason to deny the request and nothing that the board members could do without a valid reason to deny her sabbatical request.