Plainfield School District Settles Campus Monitor Lawsuit

District 202 will shell out $264,500 to a group of former campus monitors who claim they were victims of sex discrimination when they were laid off three years ago.

On Monday, the board voted to approve a settlement that will give six former employees — Lisa Allison, Patti Mills, Heather Doyle, Vicki Howell, Michelle Frodyma and Loriann Darmstadt —$33,062.50 each. Another $66,125 will go to their attorney.

The lawsuit stemmed from the board’s 2010 decision to lay off 30 campus monitors, and keep 13 male and 13 female staffers. At the time, district staff explained the decision, saying female monitors cannot perform duties such as monitoring boys bathrooms and locker rooms. Prior to the cuts, the district employed 31 female campus monitors and 18 males, according to a 2011 article in the Herald-News.

The employees, members of the Plainfield Association of Support Staff (PASS), filed a grievance against the board, alleging that the cuts violated the district’s collective bargaining agreement with the union, since some men with less seniority kept their jobs over women with more seniority. 

“Based on the needs of the schools, the district retained the 13 most senior female and the 13 most senior male monitors for the 2011-school year,” board vice president Michelle Smith said Monday as she read from a prepared statement. Last March, an arbitrator found that the district did not violate the collective bargaining agreement, she added. 

In November 2010, the six laid-off women filed a civil rights lawsuit alleging sex discrimination and claiming the district failed to provide them with due process. The suit named then-board members Stuart Bledsoe, Michael Kelly, Dave Obrzut, Eric Gallt, Roger Bonuchi, Michelle Smith and Rod Westfall. Only Westfall, Smith and Bonuchi are still on the board.

In addition to being reinstated to their former campus monitor posts with no loss of seniority, the six women sought the full amount of wages they’d lost, compensatory damages and attorney’s fees. 

Instead, they’ll each get a little more than $33,000, in exchange for fully releasing the district from any claims arising from their employment.

In her prepared statement, Smith said the settlement came after district officials took part in a court-supervised settlement conference in May “to avoid the additional expense, diverse of administrative and board time, delay and uncertainty of further litigation.” 

The settlement “does not constitute any admission of fault, responsibility or liability on the part of the district,” Smith said, adding District 202 continues to deny any wrongdoing with regard to the 2010 reduction in force of campus monitors.