By Jennifer Sawhney

Kenilworth Junior High School office manager Annie Nagel is relieved she will keep her position when she returns from an extended medical leave after her job (and medical insurance) was on the line.

For the last four and a half months, Nagel, 35, has been navigating the paperwork and terms of her absence after she had a seizure while driving and crashed into a redwood tree. In the aftermath, doctors ultimately determined she needed brain surgery to address an underlying condition, which she went through in mid-August.

Petaluma City Schools initially denied her request to extend her leave of absence through early October, which led Nagel to submit an appeal to the board and similarly prompted her peers in Petaluma Chapter 212 of the California School Employees Association to organize.

The district Board of Education reviewed this appeal at its Sept. 15 meeting during a closed session. Board president Mady Cloud’s statement was short – “The appeal is granted” – during her report after the closed session to rows of people wearing either black or gold t-shirts (the school’s colors) that read “We are Kenilworth.”

“I did not expect the whole room to be filled with Kenilworth folks,” Nagel said, noting there were union representatives, parents, and fellow staffers in the audience. “I feel like the board really came through. They saw it from an equitable standpoint.”

During this ordeal, Nagel reported wanting to give up, knowing she put her recovery on the line as she used precious energy to read up on her rights, gather documents, and file appeals. She was frustrated with the communication and the overall process. “But walking away would have meant giving up a position and a school community that I have invested so much of myself in, and I’m really proud that I stuck with it,” she said.

Nagel started working with Petaluma City Schools more than nine years ago as a classified substitute and has spent the last eight and a half years as the senior school secretary and office manager at the east side public junior high.

She spoke about the generations of students she’s seen walk its campus, the growth she sees year after year, and the action that keeps her returning.

“One of the biggest things this experience opened my eyes to is how difficult these systems can be to navigate when someone is already sick, injured, or disabled,” Nagel wrote to Petaluma Voice. “Before my accident, I was used to processing complicated information very quickly. I also know school district systems extremely well and had people supporting me, and I was still overwhelmed. I kept thinking about what this process might look like for someone who does not have that background, support, or ability to research everything themselves."

Now that that is behind Nagel, she’ll focus on her recovery. She is tentatively set to return to work in early October, pending her neurologist’s approval.

“I love my Petaluma community," she said. "It was worth the fight.”

Jennifer Sawhney is a reporter and co-founder of Petaluma Voice. She can be reached at jsawhney@petalumavoice.org.