Legal Question in Discrimination Law in Florida

age discm. for getting teaching job in hillsborrough county,flhi

Hillsborough county,Florida has been begging for school teachers for the past 3 years. Local papers print stories of people getting jobs with no teaching education,training or experience. The county is subsidizing training for people who are not up to standards. My wife is 54 yrs. old and taught school for 3 yrs. in the late 60's and early 70's and gave up teaching to be a stay at home mom. She has her masters ,teaching cert./lic from connecticut, and letters of recommendation. She has been applying for a job for 2 yrs. She has done everything that the Hills. county education dept. has told her to do; example: pay to have her Connecticut cert. converted to Florida cert.,attend job fairs and seminars. She has had 3 interviews in 2yrs. and no call backs or explainations for not being hired. She believes that because of her age and the fact that she is fully qualified with a masters degree (she falls into a much higher pay category according to county scales) that she is not getting hired. She has tried to seek legal assistance locally, but to no avail; they dont return calls or say they dont do this type of work or only represent companies for eeoc/disc. cases.


Asked on 11/03/99, 5:34 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Jonathan Schiff Self employed

Re: age discm. for getting teaching

My wife has encountered the same problem. We are just a few years younger (she also got her teaching license in Connecticut) and she has had a difficult time getting jobs. I am not sure if this is strictly age discrimination (I have to admit age discrimination is not my specialty area). I think a lot of what is going on is that the pay scales go by years of experience which is only in part related to chronological age. The schools are using all sorts of deceptions to get the experienced teachers out and fill positions with new hires. In part it's due to money and in part they want to eliminate the old guard so the systems can be restaffed with more docile people who will "go along with the program" whatever that may be.

I think an age discrimination action is an intriguing idea, which I can check into a little more. My first hunch is that you will probably have more luck filing a complaint with the EEOC than the state Human Rights Commission. But you have to file by a certain date (within 6 months of a violation, I believe). Let me know what is happening and maybe I can find a lawyer in your area.

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Answered on 11/17/99, 6:26 pm


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