PHILADELPHIA — A woman claims she was terminated and suffered age discrimination while working for the School District of Philadelphia.
Monique Jones filed a complaint July 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against the School District of Philadelphia alleging age discrimination and retaliation.
Jones, who is 55 years old, began working for the School District of Philadelphia in 2002 as a food service worker, then transferred to client staffing, according to her complaint.
She alleges in August of 2020, she showed up to work at the School of the Future where she had worked for four years and was transferred to Longstreth Elementary School without any notice. Jones claims that when she starting working at Longstreth in September of 2020, the principal Tisha Douglas who was in her 30s,, "was short with her and commented that she was 'slow.'"
Jones alleges that she was the "oldest employee in her location," and also claims she was supplied with a Chromebook in October of 2020, so that she could work from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She alleges that despite after two weeks of repeated requests, Douglas refused to give her the proper link to log into her Chromebook to work yet younger employees were given their passwords and were able to work from home.
Jones claims she was fired for excessive absences and that she was not allowed to use her 68 sick days of available time.
Jones seeks monetary relief, interest, trial by jury and all other just relief. She is represented by David Killer of Koller Law LLC in Philadelphia.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case number 2:21-CV-03231