Teacher gets job back after 20 years

TRENTON, N.J., May 12 (UPI) -- The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that a teacher who went on disability leave 20 years ago because of alleged alcoholism is entitled to her job.

The high court said Monday that state law allows the disabled who recover to return to work without any time limit, The (Newark) Star-Ledger reports. The court ruled for Charlotte Klumb and against the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District.

The state education commissioner ordered the district to return Klumb to the classroom in 2005. The district immediately began a legal fight seeking her termination.

Klumb, a middle school English teacher, went on disability after the district alleged that she had been drunk on the job and was an alcoholic. She now denies having had a drinking problem, saying that she was in the middle of a difficult divorce that affected her behavior.

"I want to retire like everyone else -- with dignity, not with some slur made in connection with my name," she told The Star-Ledger. "No one should cast aspersions on me."