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First Posted: 4/11/2014 PLAINS TWP. &#8212; She&#8217;s been a &#8220;Bachelor&#8221; TV show reject and a point of controversy regarding Wilkes-Barre Area School District&#8217;s generous leave of absence policy.
Now elementary teacher Elise Mosca has resurfaced in a Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs &#8220;Signings and Sightings&#8221; with a &#8220;Meet Elise Mosca&#8221; event slated for April 17.
&#8220;We have various public figures, from authors to reality TV folks to sports figures, who visit and say hello and sign autographs,&#8221; Mohegan Sun President Michael Bean said.&#8221;She has now appeared on television on the &#8216;Bachelor,&#8217; that would be the type of reality personality we would have here.&#8221;
Bean declined to say whether Mosca is being paid for her appearance.
Mosca will be available from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. on the Sky Bridge &#8220;for people to visit and say hello and get an autograph,&#8221; Bean said. &#8220;From 9 p.m. on we have Breakers After Dark and she&#8217;ll be there as well.&#8221;
Mosca, an elementary school teacher in Wilkes-Barre Area School District, rose to prominence when she was selected as a contestant on ABC TV&#8217;s &#8220;The Bachelor&#8221; reality program. She vied with 17 other woman to be chosen by Juan Pablo Galavis, but was booted off the show, filmed in Seoul, South Korea, when Juan Pablo did not give her a rose at the end of the episode airing in January.
But her stardom sparked controversy, first when a racy video of her and other young women in lingerie was spotted on the Internet. It was titled &#8220;Yule Log Hotties.&#8221;
Questions also rose about how she was given an unpaid leave from her teaching job before heading for &#8220;The Bachelor&#8221; set.
The district contract allows unpaid leave for family or military persons, but Solicitor Ray Wendolowski said the board has been granting leave without asking for a reason so long it falls under &#8220;past practices.&#8221; That means failure to grant such a leave could lead to a union grievance regardless of contract language.
A Times Leader review of school board agendas from 2009 showed such unquestioned leave had been granted at least 10 times in the last five years.
Wendolowski was on vacation Friday but contacted The Times Leader and repeated much of what he has said on the topic before: That the board has asked him to review Mosca&#8217;s actions to see if she has violated the state school code.
Wendolowski said he expects to conduct the review this summer, looking not only at the school code, but at court cases that may apply and at rules established by the state Professional Standards and Practices Commission, which can impose penalties on teachers even when no law has been broken.

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