Teachers sue
Two teachers in the Bethlehem Center School District have sued, claiming they are paid less than their male counterparts. In a suit filed Friday in federal court in Pittsburgh, Janet Day and Paula Lancas claimed the Washington County district is violating the constitution by giving male teachers full credit for prior teaching experience, while not giving them the same credit.
Day, of Fredericktown, is a speech/language pathologist who has worked in the district since the 1999-2000 school year. The suit indicated she had six years of prior teaching experience for Washington County Intermediate Unit 1.
Lancas of Charleroi is a French teacher who has worked for the district since 2001 and has 19 years of teaching experience, according to the suit. Of those, eight years were in Pennsylvania public schools, one was in an Ohio public school and 10 were as a parochial school teacher within the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.
The suit indicated that the district pays teachers in accordance with a salary scale in which education and years of Pennsylvania teaching experience combine to determine the salary.
Day currently has 13 years’ experience, but the suit claimed the district has only given her credit for seven years on its 2006-2007 pay scale.
Although Lancas now has 24 years’ teaching experience, the district has only given her credit for six years, according to the suit.
But during the 2006-2007 school year, a male teacher with seven years’ experience was paid at the step 9 scale and another male teacher was paid at step 10 although he had six and a half years’ experience
“At the same time (the district) provided male teachers whose experience was acquired within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania full credit for each year they taught,” alleged attorney Samuel J. Cordes in the suit.
The district “pays male high school teachers performing duties requiring equal skill, effort and responsibility more than it has paid both Mrs. Day and Mrs. Lancas,” Cordes wrote.
During this school year, Day is being paid $42,250, but should be making $44,050 and Lancas is making $41,950 when she should be making $60,450, Cordes alleged.
The suit asks that the women be paid in the same manner as male teachers, and for back pay during their years of service.