Randolph teacher alleges disability, age bias in lawsuit: 'I am being set up for failure'

A longtime Randolph Middle School math teacher with significant hearing loss has sued the township school district, saying her recent retirement was a "constructive discharge" motivated by discrimination against her age and disabilities.

Tracey Silverschotz, in a January email to district officials, wrote "It is clear that I am being set up for failure and that my working conditions are hostile."

The email is contained in court documents filed by Silverschotz on Aug. 11 in state Superior Court in Morristown. The suit seeks unspecified damages including attorney's fees, front and back pay "and any other relief as is deemed to be just and equitable by the Court."

Silverschotz's attorney, Heidi Weintraub, said constructive discharge is a legal term used when, "in essence, the employer forces you to leave under circumstances that are intolerable. And that's what happened in Tracy Silverschotz's case."

Named as defendants are the Randolph School District and Board of Education, Superintendent Jennifer Fano, Middle School Principal David Kricheff and 30 unnamed "John Does."

Randolph district responds

Eric Harrison, an attorney for the Randolph district for this case, said on Friday that an answer to the Silverschotz complaint will be "filed shortly."

"While we are not at liberty to comment on the merits of active litigation, we do look forward to defending the district’s position in court," he said.

Silverschotz, 59, alleges that she was denied a request in 2020 to fill an open math teacher position. The position would have involved teaching to smaller class sizes in which she could better manage her hearing impairment. She had previously been diagnosed with complete hearing loss in her right ear and a 50% loss in the left, according to the the lawsuit.

"Despite [Silverschotz's] prior experience as an Academic Skills Math Teacher as well as many years of overall experience as a Middle School math teacher, [STEM Supervisor Melissa Strype] instructed her not to apply for the position," the complaint reads. Instead, it says, the position was offered to "another teacher, who had no prior teaching experience in that position and was therefore less qualified than [Silverschotz], but who, at 40 years old, was significantly younger and, who, upon information, has no reported disabilities."

The lawsuit outlines Silverschotz's teaching career at Randolph Middle School, where she started as a substitute teacher in 2001 and was brought on full-time the following year. She was nominated seven times for "Teacher of the Year," according to the complaint.

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After being denied the math teaching position in February 2020 - with COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns soon to follow - Silverschotz applied for a disability retirement in March of that year, with her retirement contingent on the approval of her application. As she awaited a decision on her application, Silverschotz also took a medical leave due to the pandemic and her additional health risk as a Type II diabetic, the suit said.

Medical retirement denied

When her application for medical retirement was denied in October 2020, she attempted to return to work, with a doctor's note stating her needs for "reasonable accommodations." They included a smaller classroom size, a classroom free of distractions such as loud fans and machinery and the installation of amplification equipment to help her better hear students.

According to her complaint, while Silverschotz was ultimately offered some of the requested accommodations, she was also assigned to act as a “floater” filling in on an as-needed basis for absent teachers. The assignment required her to move from classroom to classroom throughout the school building.

At the end of the 2020-21 school year, she was placed on a formal "improvement plan." The next school year, the district placed Silverschotz on a Corrective Action plan and her salary increment for the 2022-2023 school year was "correspondingly withheld," the lawsuit states. "Baseless concerns" followed throughout the year, including an allegation she encouraged a student to speak on her behalf, the lawsuit alleges.

"It is clear ... the district is determined to 'paper' my file with whatever they can come up with in order to force me out for discriminatory and retaliatory reasons," she wrote in a comment on her CAP report.

Silverschotz filed her retirement papers on April 28 of this year after learning her final CAP report would indicate she failed to correct documented deficiencies.

"If she did not retire, she would have been faced with tenure charges," Weintraub said. "This is constructive discharge. This is disability and age discrimination for certain."

Weintraub said written discovery can begin after the district filed its answer to the complaint. But with a backlog in the courts due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a large number of judicial vacancies in New Jersey, depositions are not likely to begin until sometime in 2024, she said.

William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com 

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This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Randolph NJ teacher files disability, age bias lawsuit vs district