The Antelope Valley Times

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Feds sue Palmdale charter school for alleged pay discrimination

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LOS ANGELES – A Palmdale charter school was sued Thursday by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly violating federal law by paying a female math tutor less than a male tutor.

According to the lawsuit, The Guidance Charter School paid math tutor Deserae Rodriguez a lower hourly rate than her male co-worker — even though their jobs were interchangeable — because of her gender.

An administrator at the school, which serves kindergarten through 12th- grade students, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The suit was filed in Los Angeles federal court after the agency attempted to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process, according to the EEOC.

The complaint seeks back pay along with liquidated damages and/or compensatory and punitive damages for Rodriguez, as well as injunctive relief intended to prevent and address discrimination.

“Ensuring that women receive equal pay for equal work is one of the EEOC’s strategic enforcement priorities,” said Anna Park, regional attorney for the agency’s Los Angeles office. “There is no excuse for employers underpaying someone simply because of her gender.”

Added Rosa Viramontes, director of the EEOC’s Los Angeles office: “Equal pay is a top priority for the EEOC. All employees deserve to be paid equally for the same job and same work, and the EEOC will keep working hard to make sure that principle is observed throughout America.”

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Filed Under: Education, Palmdale

27 comments for "Feds sue Palmdale charter school for alleged pay discrimination"

  1. I don’t see any news posted here, but LACOE denied their petition for GS-2 (their second try at Guidance Charter School) citing many, many problems with the school. I don’t know what is going to happen with the newly built school, but the charter has been denied, so it won’t open as a Guidance school.

    If you want to read the problems cited by yourself, you can do so here: https://www.lacoe.edu/Portals/0/Board/Agenda.pdf?ver=2018-08-17-163353-917

    And just as a point, I saw an article on the AV press and other sites regarding this, but no coverage here at all.

    Also, it

    • Maybe now the Palmdale School District board can focus on its poor performing schools now that they have killed Guidance. I’m so glad they are so concerned about the children. SMH.

    • Isn’t the charter school process a lot like any other permitting process? You take in your plans, they nitpick a bunch of stuff. You fix the stuff and come back with your plans, they don’t like some of your fixes and nitpick a bunch of stuff that they didn’t mention the first time. You ask why the stuff that was fine the first time is suddenly not okay, and they say “if you want a permit shut up, because we hold all the cards.” So you fix all that and come back again, and again they find a bunch of stuff to nitpick about. And eventually you come in crawling and begging, they feel powerful enough, and you get your approval.

      I find it instructive that at the hearing you linked there were multiple charter schools at varying stages in the process, all of which I expect will eventually get their permits. They just need to crawl and beg “appropriately” first.

      • It’s not just ‘crawl and beg’. There are regulations about a what a charter does and how it should be run, how it benefits children, etc. Keep in mind that this is LACOE we’re talking about, not PSD who apparently approved the charter for five years without giving it a second glance. Now, if PSD later refused to renew the charter after citing problems, and then later the state denied it, and then later LACOE denied it, you can be damn sure something’s seriously wrong with it. So GCS gave it a second shot with THIS charter (GCS-2) and it still didn’t pass.

        Now, upon reading the charter and the response by LACOE, I can tell you that they half assed the original charter, and PSD rubber stamped it. And GCS is shocked (SHOCKED) that someone actually held them accountable for the bad test scores, lack of proper teachers, and monetary mismanagement.

        The solution is simple though: Write a good charter, hire good teachers, teach the children well and manage the school as it if were a proper learning environment, not a vanity status thing for the Executive Director, and it will succeed. Charter schools CAN work, but they need dedication and student centered learning outcomes for them to work.

        • Sure man, just like “there are regulations” when you want a building permit, “there are regulations” when you want a business license, etc etc etc. So you do what you can to get within the regulations, you crawl and beg a bit for a good “interpretation,” and if you have to you bribe somebody. In the end you get what you need…and so will GCS, despite all of your sky is falling commentary.

  3. Well then the female employee should’ve negotiated more diligently for a higher salary. A savvy employer is always going to lowball you on your initial offer. If you just accept it and don’t negotiate–that’s on you.

    • @Dee…A school run by anyone other than a Muslim, values a woman less than a man, much of the time. And it goes beyond the school system; like our politicians, etc.

  5. As a student of The Guidance Charter school i feel i am obligated to take a stand for something i should be seated for. My gender does not define my ability or quality of the work i am capable of accomplishing. How can i represent a school that so easily goes against everything i strongly believe in, my only belief being equality. And yes equality for ALL.

  6. Forgive us if we are leary of a group that operates out of a mosque where the imam took care of burying the san bernadino shooters

    • Let me guess, you’d have preferred leaving them out for buzzards? Setting their heads on spikes above the gates of the city?

      • id prefer their family claim them and pay for burial otherwise county cremates them. Why did the imam bury them? There are mechanisms in place for an unclaimed body. They would have been cremated. But that doesnt line up with islam. So the local imam had them buried. Why?

        • Because it was not only the right thing to do, but the decent thing to do. They were dead and of no harm to anyone. I realize you probably wish Rex has his wishes and they were tossed in the dump, but we are a better nation than the model of society that comes from Rex’s bizarre thinking.

    • Ah, so every blue blooded Christian should then also be leery (proper spelling) of every holy person that took care to bury or officiate the funeral of a murderer. That would leave very few churches to pray in.
      It helps to think before opening ones moth.

      • There’s Christianity and then there’s Rex’s brand of christianity, of which I want no part. Character destruction, sue thy neighbor, bearing false witness, greed, etc. are not the kinds of characteristics I wish to embrace.

        I do hope that people who are seeking faith do not use Rex as an example. No one is perfect, but we are warned to beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

        • A shepherd does not let the wolves slaughter the sheep. Is that palpable enough for you?

    • If in “Us” you mean the cult of Rex and that line of thought, then that is to be expected. To be outraged over the burial of a dead terrorist, and yet promote an influx of Communist Chinese to the militarily important Antelope Valley, shows how disturbed the though process is in the cult of Rex.

  7. Yes! I use to work for the Palmdale School Dist. as a temp. Read many letters against this school yet they were ignored. The man that runs the school would come into the office and scream and yell at the women in the office if he didn’t get his way. His culture values women less than men so no surprise there. One of the letters I read said he made a trip once a month back to his home country, since I have been to that country several times, those tickets are around $5,000.00 per round trip ticket.