Lawsuit claims Kentucky school district retaliated against teacher over breastfeeding
Officials at a Kentucky school district failed to accommodate a teacher’s need to pump breast milk for her baby and ultimately fired her, the woman has alleged in a federal lawsuit.
One supervisor in the Casey County school district told Jessica Childers it wouldn’t work for her to express milk while at work, according to the lawsuit.
“We don’t pay you to do nothing,” the man allegedly said.
The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Bowling Green is against the Casey County Board of Education, Superintendent Barry Lee and Daran Wall, principal at Jones Park Elementary School.
Childers was a special education teacher at the school when her baby was born the 2020-21 school year, and Lee was director of special education at the time, according to the lawsuit.
Childers asked several times for school officials to provide her with enough time and a place to express milk at school, but they didn’t, the lawsuit alleges.
During a meeting where other teachers were present in October 2020, Lee made the statement about not paying Childers to do nothing, referring to the time Childers needed to express milk, her complaint says.
“We pay you to see kids,” he allegedly said.
The same month, the time Childers was given to pump milk was limited; Lee reduced her planning period; and Wall required her to produce a doctor’s statement about her need to express milk, the lawsuit alleges.
In December, Lee complained that Childers was not doing her job in filing an evaluation on a child, even though she was on leave at the time, and in early January, the cover over the glass on the door of her classroom was removed, the lawsuit says.
No other door coverings were removed that day, though Wall sent an email to all staff members the next day telling them no windows in classroom doors should be covered.
That same month, Wall unlocked the door to Childers’ classroom and came in during her pumping session, which was blocked off on her schedule and shared with Wall, the lawsuit says.
A custodian also barged into her classroom while she was expressing milk, according to the lawsuit.
Wall later gave Childers a bad evaluation and she was terminated on April 6, 2021.
The lawsuit says Lee and Wall created a hostile workplace and caused Childers humiliation, embarrassment and emotional distress.
Childers is seeking more than $2 million in the complaint, nearly all of it in punitive damages, meaning damages to punish the school district and the two officials.
The attorney representing the school board was not available for comment Tuesday morning.
The case is not the first controversy over breastfeeding in Kentucky. In 2018, for instance, a woman claimed that a manager at a Louisville restaurant tried to cover her with a napkin while she nursed her baby.
Kentucky lawmakers approved a law in 2006 that gives mothers the right to breastfeed or express milk in any location, according to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that infants be breastfed exclusively for about their first six month, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kentucky ranks relatively low on that measure. For infants born in Kentucky in 2017, 44.5 percent were still being breastfed at six months, compared with 58.3 percent nationally, according to the CDC.
