How a teacher's guide-dog training set the new line on paid versus unpaid leave
When two accommodations both work, who gets to choose? A federal appeals court just handed employers a clear answer.
On May 13, 2026, the Sixth Circuit ruled that Lakota Local School District in Ohio did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act when it denied paid sick leave to a longtime art teacher with a serious disability. The district offered unpaid leave instead so she could attend guide-dog training, and that, the court said, was enough.
The teacher, Andrea Tumbleson, has Usher syndrome, a rare genetic disease that has gradually taken her hearing and vision. She has taught art at Lakota Plains Junior School for more than 20 years. According to the opinion, Rob Kramer, Lakota's Executive Director of Human Resources, described her teaching as excellent and her evaluations as consistently positive. The district has never disciplined her.
In early 2023, Tumbleson was matched with a guide dog, Henry, through Leader Dogs for the Blind in Rochester Hills, Michigan. To bring him home, she had to attend a three-week training course at the end of May 2023, which meant missing the close of the school year. She asked Lakota for 13 paid sick days. Kramer said no. The training, he explained, did not fall within the district's definition of personal illness under its sick-leave policy, Ohio law, or the collective-bargaining agreement. He approved unpaid leave as an ADA accommodation, along with some paid personal days.
Tumbleson sued, alleging disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, and an FMLA violation. The district court granted summary judgment to Lakota. The Sixth Circuit affirmed on all three claims.
On the discrimination claim, the panel found Tumbleson could not name a single nondisabled employee who received sick leave for an absence that did not qualify under the policy. The court also noted she had benefited from Lakota's short-term leave rule earlier in the school year, when the district approved paid sick leave for a five-day guide-dog orientation in September 2022. HR only stepped in when an absence ran past 10 days, and the rule applied to everyone the same way.
On accommodation, the court reaffirmed a principle HR leaders should bookmark: the employer, not the employee, picks among reasonable options. Unpaid leave let Tumbleson attend the training and bring Henry home. That, the court said, was enough. Her argument that three weeks without pay caused family financial strain did not change the analysis. Those hardships, the court said, sit outside the work environment and are not part of the reasonableness test.
The court also brushed aside the argument that Lakota had to prove paid leave would impose an undue hardship on the district. That defense only matters when paid leave is the only reasonable option. Here, unpaid leave worked too, so Lakota had the discretion to choose the less expensive route.
On the FMLA claim, the court assumed Tumbleson qualified for leave but said the law only requires paid leave where the employer would normally provide it. Kramer's testimony was that guide-dog training did not fit the sick-leave policy's personal-illness definition under Ohio law, the collective-bargaining agreement, or the school board's policy. That ended the inquiry.
The opinion does leave one door open. The sick-leave policy permits leave for absence due to personal illness, and the court flagged that the phrase "due to" arguably invokes but-for causation, meaning a future plaintiff might argue her disease caused the training absence. Tumbleson did not raise that theory, so the court left it for another case.
For HR, the practical signals are direct. Reasonable accommodation does not mean preferred accommodation. Unpaid leave can satisfy the ADA when it lets the employee perform the essential functions of the job. And FMLA paid-leave substitution depends entirely on the employer's existing sick-leave policy. Draft those policies carefully, define key terms, and apply them the same way every time.
