You may have heard of this case already, but if not, here's the story, according to Time:
Heather Burgbacher, a teacher at Rocky Mountain Academy of Evergreen, was told that she was "not a good fit" for the school because of her pumping schedule.
Burgbacher had arranged for a teacher's aide to supervise her classes for a total of one hour per seek so she could pump for ten minutes during each of two classes she taught twice a week. She scheduled students to do their typing exercises during that time, so no teaching time was lost. If she hadn't had those breaks, she says, she would have had to wait five to six hours before pumping.
Before she was fired, the school's human resources director told her to start using formula in lieu of pumping.
Colorado has a lactation accommodation law which requires an employer "to provide reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for up to two years after the child's birth." The ACLU has taken on Burgbacher's case.
The break time the teacher arranged sounded quite reasonable to me, and unlike in other states the break time doesn't have to be unpaid. So, what am I missing here?
Follow Motherwear on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to the Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog with email updates and RSS feeds. Subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons





