History teacher Robert Freeman will be taking a semester-long leave of absence beginning January 7, 2013. The school board approved the leave at the Tuesday, December 10 school board meeting as part of the personnel report that the board passed.

Freeman says he is leaving to spend more time working on his organization One Dollar for Life (ODFL). The group has only been around for five years, but it has already built more than a dozen schools around the world.

Freeman also says that he is taking a leave of absence rather than leaving entirely because he isn’t sure if he will want to come back.

“I don’t know what it’s going to be like to not be able to engage with the kids, and so I guess [it’s] to keep a back door open if I ever did want to come back,” Freeman said.

However, Freeman says that he is “thankful” to the school and administration for allowing ODFL to be germinated at the school.